Martlet Season
by Doormouse
Summary: It is the season of the Martlet, winter fades to spring and Emma sticks her nose places it doesn't belong while the people of Storybrooke begin to wake from the wicked queen's curse.
1. Chapter 1

**Throwing my proverbial hat into the fray of Rumpbelle stories. I couldn't give up on the fact that our Emma would not just *drop* something if she thought there was someone in trouble. Better yet that it annoys Regina.**

**Martlets are an ancient heraldry symbol. They also represent happiness and a restless, traveling nature.**

* * *

There were many things that Emma Swan was and was not, like any other person. She was a fighter, she was the kind to stand up at the gates of Hell and spit in the devil's eye rather than bow down. But she had learned when _not_ to hear something. To hear it, file it away, and come to it later. Hunting people this sometimes helped, though she would always prefer strapping on a pair of boots, drawing a gun and running headlong after whatever she was heading toward without thought beyond that.

She had come upon the cabin slowly, unsure if startling Mr. Gold would get the hostage (victim?) shot since she knew he had a gun and was quick enough to the draw she bet he could actually use it.

She heard about the mysterious "Her" Mr. Gold refused to name, and though strategy was never really her forte she kept her questions to herself. Gold was the type to plan, to play chess, to think thirty moves ahead. She'd learned that at one of her Foster homes, let them think you're dumb, let them think that you're not a variable that needs to be considered, and then you've got free reign to figure out your own course with all the time in the world to plan it.

She might not have Graham's skill of tracking through the woods, but the daughter that Moe French apparently had was probably _not_ hiding in the woods. Emma feared that at the worst she would find a death certificate and an answer to why Gold had been willing to beat a man to death, she would at least know if Gold were a danger to French or anyone else…more than usual.

"Henry," she asked, looking down at her melting vanilla cone while Henry was tackling a Banana Split now that the sparklers had run down. "Are…" she wasn't even entirely sure why she was asking. She didn't believe that his theory on the fairy tales was anything more than Archie had explained: Henry's way of communicating the best he knew how. But, something deep inside, the little niggling _something_ that had her always knowing trouble was coming a split second before, the flickering spark that had kept her moving, that incessant _childishness_ that still believed in wishes and magic even when she should know better of all people that had made her wish on her birthday candle. "Are there any stories in your book," she managed, licking up a trail of melted vanilla that had reached her hand, "that don't end happily?"

He looked up at her with a furrowed brow and she floundered for a bit, not even sure what she was asking.

"A princess and a prince and they are separated? Or…or she _dies_?"

"You've been reading too much of the Grimm fairy tales," he chided her with a smile that was far too old for any kid of hers, let alone so young a face. Still he thought for a moment, swirling his spoon through hot fudge and melted ice cream.

"Ariel didn't get a happy ending yet," Henry offered with a shrug.

"Yet? I thought no one here had a happy ending because they had all been stolen," she offered with a little half smile. While he swallowed a bite that was probably too large to be decent her fingers darted out and stole the cherry from the top of his mountain of chocolate. He made a face but continued speaking anyway.

"Some of the stories weren't _done_ when the Queen cast her curse. Snow White and Prince Charming had fallen in love and gotten married, but Cinderella's prince was still missing, and Pinocchio was a real boy but the Little Mermaid hadn't even met her prince yet," Henry explained. "The book told the stories as far as they had gone but the Happy Endings have to be saved for the stories to finish," he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Emma couldn't remember why she had asked in the first place, but she did learn only suddenly just how much it had hurt not to be allowed to interact with Henry like this all the time. She had almost forgotten how he could speak with enough conviction in his voice that _she _almost started to believe him.

"Of course, right, which is why we've got to bring them back," she said, crunching into the cone of her ice cream.

"Right," Henry nodded. Then he paused, and it must have been important because an over-sized spoonful of ice cream paused mid-way to his mouth too. "Why?" he asked, and Emma busied herself crunching at the waffle cone rather than answer, because the truth was she wasn't certain.

Why had she wished on that birthday candle so long ago? Why had she agreed to help Graham try to…what, find his heart? Why had she given Gold the chance to ask for help rather than just arresting him right away?

"Something…happened last night that just got me thinking, is all," she said, treading that delicate line between how much she had hated being treated like a child when she was Henry's age, and realizing that she didn't _want_ to expose Henry to the horrors of the real world. Let him fight Evil Queens and curses, but don't let him know about real suffering, and pain, and that kind of relentless agony that doesn't end until you die.

As much as Regina got under her skin and as much as she didn't really want to leave Henry with that woman, Emma Swan knew one thing, and that was she would rather Henry was with Regina than in the Foster System. She remembered the good homes that were always over-crowded so you never got noticed anyway, and the bad homes where you were a meal ticket. She remembered Karl Weathers who used to assign the kids chores and then sit on the couch and bet on sports, and Sally who had been two years older but always used to tell stories about kitchen maids who became princesses.

She remembered a diner in the middle of nowhere. She remembered being so alone and so scared and so very pregnant and knowing her foster parents weren't going to come bail her out this time.

"The Little Mermaid story hadn't even started yet," Henry said, as though he could sense her discomfort without knowing the cause and wanted to make it better. And he knew already Emma wasn't one to talk about her feelings. "The queen had gone to Rumpelstiltskin for a curse, but Ariel didn't even know her prince. And Cinderella's prince went missing before—" he paused, this time with the spoon hanging forgotten out of his mouth. "Cinderella's prince had been missing, he went missing when she tried to get out of her deal with Rumpelstiltskin! That's why they weren't together here."

"But Snow White and her prince aren't together, isn't that part of the curse?" Emma asked, liking this topic more than thinking about Henry in the Foster System, reaching eighteen and being kicked out on his ear that day whether he knew how to take care of himself or not.

Henry made a face, as though he hadn't considered this, but she liked that about him. Things like this were obstacles to be overcome, and they never kept him down for long.

"Well, but they were still together, Mary Margret would bring him flowers, and they're together now—" for a horrible moment Emma thought Henry knew of the affair that had somehow remained a secret even to this point, "even if he's with that other girl, they talk and have coffee and are friends," she hid her sigh of relief by biting the bottom off her cone and slurping noisily at the melted ice cream, just to make Henry laugh.

He did and then continued, "But Cinderella, _Ashley _and her prince weren't even allowed to see each other, they were kept apart."

"Couldn't that be a part of the curse," she asked.

"I guess," Henry admitted making a face, "but I don't think so, see," he grinned and Emma noticed a smear of chocolate on his cheek and realized that whatever happened, this, this innocence and wonder and _joy_ were why she had given Henry up. "You're smart, that's why we need you for Operation Cobra, you think of things I haven't."

She smiled and turned back to her ice cream in silence.

"Which must mean that Ariel and her Prince don't know each other," he frowned, "that makes things harder, and we fixed Cinderella, and…Hansel and Gretel we fixed, so that leaves," he bit his lip, thoughtfully and Emma watched the fuzzy grey expanse of the sky. It had snowed the night before, and warmed just enough to turn to rain; this winter hadn't been bad at all. It had been grey and dreary, but there were no blizzards, and even when it was cold it was mild for Maine.

She had hoped it would snow enough to give Henry a proper winter, with snowballs and snowmen and mugs of hot cocoa with cinnamon. But even today though it was brisk and the sky was uniformly grey there wasn't that _scent_ or the anticipation that seemed to come with impending snow.

"—was locked away in a tower and forgotten so we should work on finding her. But where do you find a tower to lock someone in in the real world?"

"What?" she asked, coming back to reality.

"A tower, if you're here and not in the fairy tale world, where would you lock up someone who is trapped in a tower?"

"Uh, you mean like Rapunzel?" Emma asked, wishing she had paid more attention when Sally had talked endlessly about princesses and fairy tales.

"Oh we have to find her too," Henry made that impending challenge face again and Emma wondered if that's how Regina looked right before she tried to thwart someone. "No, Belle, when she left the Beast's castle she was locked away in a tower."

"Don't you have that backwards kid?" Emma asked, glancing at the clock on the wall and realizing that her time was almost up. She stood, tugging on his coat and telling him to get going or they were going to be late.

"No, she went to the beast's castle and then when she tried to break the curse he sent her away, only her father didn't believe her that she'd been freed. He thought that the beast would never ever let her go and she must have escaped. And _he _was worried that the beast would come after them if they harbored her."

"Oh," Emma should have known from how the Snow White story went that these weren't the normal fairy tales anyway. "Right, uh, well, what about prison?"

"Nooo," Henry sighed, smiling, "that's like a dungeon, we want a tower, just a place to put someone when you want to forget about them completely. But where they'll be taken care of," he explained as they walked down the street.

They turned onto the block with the station just as Regina was leaving, and she narrowed her eyes at them and glanced at her watch before turning away and waiting where she was, tapping one foot on the chilled pavement.

"I had fun Emma," Henry said with that crooked smile and then he was off running towards Regina and Emma was left with a sad smile on her face and a soft voice in the back of her mind asking where she would hide someone away in a tower in a place like Storybrooke.

* * *

Gold was where she had left him, seated on the little cot pushed against the side of the wall and away from the bars of the cell, his head down and his hands between his knees as he turned something over and over with trembling fingers.

"Have a good talk?" she asked, shedding her coat and hanging it up.

"I see you neglected to bring _me_ any ice cream," he chided as she walked over to the bars and looked in at him.

"A teacup?" she asked and hastily—too late—he cupped his hands around it, mostly hiding it from her sight. "Is that what was missing?" she asked, leaning against the bars and raising an eyebrow even though he refused to look at her. "You not answering me doesn't stop me asking questions, it just makes me more determined to know," she warned him conversationally as she headed back to her desk. "Or did you and Regina have a tea party while I was gone?" she asked, propping up her feet on the desk.

"In case it had escaped your notice, I am no more a friend of Regina's than you are," he told her darkly, and she could hear the seething anger under his words, and knew that she wasn't meant to hear it. He was usually far better at keeping his emotions under wraps, and whatever he and the Mayor had discussed had clearly riled him.

And now he turned the cup over and over like it was a charm, or a talisman. Tabitha, the mother in one of her homes, had been religious, and constantly worrying a Rosary whenever Emma w as in trouble; which was often. Emma wondered if the cup had belonged to Moe's daughter and just what the story was there.

Emma hated mysteries. She liked solving them but that was because she hated them. She hated loose ends just lying there forgotten, she hated the unknown, she hated _not knowing_ in general. It was a wonder she hadn't gone farther in school considering how much she hated not knowing things, any things.

She was also inclined to think that whoever this Her was, this daughter of Moe French, she was alive, and in trouble. "You must really care for her," Emma tried casually.

He didn't even need to speak, she knew it had been a poor tactic the minute his head snapped up and his grip tightened on the cup. "Do not think that because I would rather see you in power than another puppet of Regina's, that that somehow makes us _friends_."

"Well," subtly was not her forte, but she knew how to bite back, "It has been a long time since I had someone who could braid my hair while we talked about boys," she snapped, standing in one swift, smooth motion and storming over to the cell.

He looked back down to his teacup, which she could now see had a chip out of it about the size of his thumb. "Look, Gold, I don't know if you think you're above it, or you really don't see it, but you nearly beat Moe French to _death_ and probably would have if I hadn't've gotten there. And the best reason you can give me is because he stole from you, which doesn't look good to a Jury."

"This is not going to go to court. He is far too terrified of me to press charges," he said darkly, narrowing his eyes at the floor.

"For the assault maybe," she told him, pulling out the only ace she had, "but kidnapping and loansharking certainly are."

"Are you threatening me Miss Swan?" he asked, turning to look up at her.

"_Sheriff_ Swan," she corrected with a dangerous growl in her voice.

"Sheriff Swan," he amended. "I am licensed by the government to offer borrowers money who cannot qualify for loans through more…" he took a deep breath in through his teeth with a hiss of a noise, "more mainstream sources."

"You _kidnapped _Moe French, and he's in the _hospital_."

"It is less than he deserved," Gold drawled.

"Then _explain_ to me, and I can _help_ you!" she fairly snarled in her frustration, and in the blink of an eye he was on his feet and one hand was gripping the bars between them. He had moved faster than she could follow, and certainly faster than he should have been able to move considering how heavily he normally relied on his cane. But in the grand scheme of things that Gold did which confused her, this didn't even rank the top ten.

"You can't help me," he assured her darkly, and it had to be her imagination but the temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees.

"Not if you won't let me, no," she sighed finally, backing away from the bars and then turning and returning to her office. She couldn't help _him _if he was going to be a belligerent ass about it, but she could certainly try and help the mysterious lost daughter.

And yes, a part of her was looking forward to a chance to see beneath the armor of fine suits and mystery that Gold always seemed to wear, to just once shake that unflappable exterior that made him seem like, rather than _thinking_ he was above everyone, that he actually _was_.

* * *

County Records was her first stop, and she checked the birth records first, figuring it would save her a lot of time in the long run to make sure that Moe actually had a daughter, it also would give her a name to work with. Mary Margaret had offered to help after class—they really _were _having a science fair and she was going to be there as a judge and helping the children set up their displays—but Emma wanted to get as much done as possible. Graham had been right, all those ages ago, very little happened in the little town. Other than strangers crashing into signs and Mr. Gold being robbed. And she absolutely hated sitting still. There was nothing to do in the office, and she could only patrol the town so much before she felt ridiculous for wasting gas.

Plus, she figured, if she did find anything this counted as an investigation.

She shed her coat and then her sweater in the oppressive heat of the little closet that served as a records room. This wasn't like when she and Sidney had looked into the appropriation of funds by Regina, these were old papers, yellowed with their age and dusty. No one ever came to look them over and so they had been moved back into the historical archives.

Judging by the way the clerk's key had stuck in the lock and the musty smell in the air, she was the first person to come in here since the room had gotten too full to hold anymore and they had moved to fill another.

She was used to hunting people in the age of computers and digitized files, and she was embarrassed to admit how long it took her to figure out how to do something with paper and filing cabinets that she could have done in twenty seconds on Google. Of _course_ she found out that Regina didn't support the decision to digitize the old records, wanting to wait until there was more money in the city budget or some nonsense.

Emma huffed angrily and yanked hard, surprised when the whole filing cabinet rocked before the drawer became unstuck. She fumbled a bit but managed to keep everything where it was and nothing spilled.

She did hear something skitter and squeak behind the case as she muscled it back into place and she closed her eyes for a moment. Emma could handle people shooting at her and getting into fights with guys twice her size, she could handle a lot of things that would send most people screaming. But _rats_ were the stuff of her nightmares. She wasn't even sure why, just that she was praying that she had imagined that sound and there wasn't anything of the furred and four-legged variety running around in here with her.

"And if there _is_," she spoke aloud, "you just stay on your side of the room and I'll stay on mine," she heard another skitter and made a face. "I'm _armed_," she told the monsters lurking out of her range of vision, like they could somehow understand her.

Reluctantly she flopped back down on the footstool that was doubling as her chair and started leafing through the papers again. She had never been a fan of dust or the smell of aged paper, it always made her nose itch, but she pushed that to the back of her mind and remembered that brief unguarded moment when she caught Gold's hand and he had looked at her with all that _agony _fresh in his eyes.

It was almost enough to make her think he was a good guy, or at least a sympathetic one.

Her eyes were watering from the dust and nearly crossed from everything she had managed to find—nothing seemed to be organized with any sort of system in mind, but rather by someone safe in the knowledge that they were paid to do a job no one would ever look back on to see if it was right or wrong.

She had found photos from the founding of the town mixed into a file that was supposed to be the property deeds for mobile carts—like the flower shop Mr. French kept—and she had found reports on a controlled burn to clear away brush one dry summer where there were supposed to be records of county taxes.

_Two things in life are certain_, she remembered hearing somewhere, _death and taxes_.

"Apparently not _records _of those taxes though," she grumbled out loud.

She did find a wedding certificate for Moe French and someone named Josette Cocteau which was heartening enough to keep her hopes up that there was something to be found in this mess of files. She had a small sandwich and a bottle of water from a vending machine in the lobby of the Courthouse and then promptly returned to her work. She probably should have done a quick patrol of the town, or at least the main roads, but a part of her was afraid that if she left she'd lose the thread she had managed to find.

It was chance that she even noticed a piece of paper slipped out of the back of a file folder and hit the ground, sliding under one of the cabinets. To prevent damage to the files in the case of flooding, all the metal cabinets were raised at least three inches off the floor to varying degrees by bricks and wedges of questionable looking wood.

Because of this slap-dash method and the scritching noises she still distantly heard at times Emma stared at the floor for a long moment before bending down and pressing her cheek to the floor hoping the paper wasn't too far under.

All she saw was a knot of cobwebs, and a dead beetle as long as her thumb that made her shudder even though she'd never been particularly scared of bugs before.

"Ah hell," she swore under her breath, grabbing an empty manila folder and reaching under the cabinet with it. She saw something move out of her way, dashing from cabinet to cabinet, and found herself torn wishing it was a bug rather than a rat and eyeing that horrifyingly large beetle again.

A dead cricket and several large dust bunnies came out along with the paper and she was ready to swear again at a useless and vile endeavor until she noticed the paper was a birth certificate, and it _had_ been in a folder labeled "Fei-Fri".

Emma actually found herself holding her breath as she lifted the paper and shook it once before unfolding it. Marie French, born to parents Moe and Josette French twenty-three years ago with attending physician Doctor Brown. She laughed breathlessly and giddily; _there was a daughter_. And now she had enough names that she could leave this horrible place and give the Storybrooke library a chance. If Marie had died, even as an infant a few days later it would be in the paper.

* * *

There was, on the distant edge of the kingdom which was ruled over—for now—by good King George, a small Barony. It was poor, and the manor was pressed up against the marshes formed by the Tigraal and Katsiss rivers. It should be very fertile land, but the land was too wet, more of a swamp than anything and so very few useful plants could be grown.

The area supported itself—mostly—with enough to spar for them to consider themselves better off than other areas of the kingdom. Their main export was parchment made from the papyrus that grew so abundantly one could barely see the water for the reeds. There was even a saying in the little corner of the land that went: _Seeing water through the reeds_ and which was used when someone saw something unbelievable.

When the Ogre Wars started they were hit especially hard. The dark soot and ash that filled the sky darkened it, bringing a chill to the air even with the scent of the fire and the crops dwindled in temperatures they could not stand. The baron's manor was hit the first by a raiding force. The ogres were eventually driven back, but the manor was irrevocably ruined, few of the glass windows remained intact and much of the wealth had been carted out by ogres—not for any use by their forces but rather to destroy it so others could not have it—leaving the baron living as meanly as his people, even though his still occupied his manor as a sign of strength that they would not be beaten back.

There were whispers of distrust and rebellion though, they people were scared and even if the invaders were kept out, and the soldiers of King George never quartered in their village the people wondered what would be left of their town.

With the reeds dying faster than they were grown, the people wondered why they should not just abandon their soggy spit of land and find someplace else to settle, further inland where it was rumored the wars did not reach.

It was said, always by a friend of a friend whose cousin lived there and never first hand, that the kingdom Midas ruled was untouched yet, even though his would soon merge with King George's. And King Leopold's kingdom—though said to be ruled by a wicked sorceress who devoured the hearts of children—was supposedly untouched.

Some said this was due to the queen's power and the fact that the ogres feared her. Others said that that was of course just rumor and it was the ridge of mountains around them providing geological isolation.

But, when the ash in the skies parted and revealed the red fires of war and the ogres were known to be only a fortnight away something miraculous happened. The baron, in his desperation called upon the demon Rumpelstiltskin to save them, which the people were not sure how to look upon. Rumpelstiltskin was a demon, but he had called on the monster to help them, and that he was willing to risk so much in their defense seemed to be more honorable than foolish.

When the story spread that the demon had refused payments of gold, and asked instead for the baron's young daughter—a kind, sweet gentle girl who was adored by all that knew her, even if she was odd enough to always come out with the nobles to watch the first harvest of the season and rather than _watch_ she wanted to help!-people could hardly believe she was really gone. They could believe that she would sacrifice herself for them, and they longed to have her returned, but they mourned her loss. And when they skies turned blue and the armies drew farther and farther away and the reeds sprang to life _like magic_ people placed candles and flowers at the front gate of the manor, offerings and tokens reminiscent of their local traditions in the event of a funeral. The baron even set a boat afloat in the swamps with one of her dresses and lit it on fire, a proper burial when one had no body.

They longed for her to return, but they moved on with their lives, not daring to waste the gift she had given them.

And then one day, when the sky was still grey with dawn and not yet pink, a single guard stood at his post and saw a young woman pause at the small shrine they had left out to their lost daughter—for she had become like a daughter to them all—and then cross through the gate and to his post.

He recognized her the moment he laid his old eyes on her and took her straight away to the Baron's rooms even though the man was not even out of bed and his servants—mostly daughters and wives of the reed farmers—were only just beginning to stir.

For months after that morning he would wake in a cold sweat. He would look across his small room to the satchel of silver he had accepted, and he would know sleep would not come back to him.

Finally he packed his things, and left his small room empty, walking off into the pink sky of dawn with the fifteen silver pieces still sitting untouched on his one table, gathering dust.

No one ever heard from him again.

* * *

Emma was still in a good mood after she quickly made her rounds and checked in at the station, so she swung by Tony's—the best pizza place Emma had ever found even after spending three months in Chicago—and surprising Mary Margaret.

"You're in a good mood," the other woman laughed as Emma swung in with the pizza held high like a prize.

"I am! I found Her," Emma explained, setting the pizza box on the counter while Mary Margaret busied herself getting glasses from the cabinets and even pulling out a nice bottle of wine.

"Her name is Marie," Emma explained over pizza and wine served, as all great food is, on the floor while the two women lounged around it. "She's twenty-three, _if _she's still alive."

"She has to be, I would think _someone_ besides Mr. Gold would know about her if she had died," Mary Margaret pointed out.

"That's what I thought," Emma admitted, staring at her slice as though she could find the answers scattered about between the toppings. "But you would think people would have noticed if she'd just vanished one day too."

"She could just have moved, and not had many friends?"

"How often do you see people moving out of Storybrooke?" Emma startled herself by asking, and she shook herself quickly. She was spending too much time listening to Henry's fairy tales if she was even coming that close to believing them.

Mary Margaret just laughed and shook her head. "Good point," she conceded. "So what do you think," she asked, becoming suddenly serious, "her connection is with Mr. Gold in all this? I mean she can't...can't _owe_ him something."

"I—I'm not sure," Emma admitted with a shrug. "I mean, yeah he assaulted Moe French, but you didn't _see_ the _way _he did it. That was...you don't see...rage like that often."

"Do you think they were...together?" Mary Margaret wondered out loud around a mouthful of pizza.

"That's what my instincts are saying, but...there's got to be at least twenty years difference between them."

"It wouldn't be the first time people with an age-gap fell in love. I mean, historically it was normal, and even today, you see people of varying ages marrying. As long as they're over eighteen and in love isn't it kind of romantic?"

"Well," Emma thought back through her own romantic past. "I mean, I guess I've even dated some older guys, but this is _Gold_ we're talking about."

"Ruby thinks he's sexy, you should hear her talk, she says he's mysterious and dangerous."

"Ruby things _everyone_ is sexy," Emma pointed out, and the two woman dissolved into laughter.

"Okay, I'll admit that," Mary Margaret said through her laughter, "But it's not _so _odd is it? And it would explain his reaction."

"It would explain his reaction if Moe had done something to her," Emma's voice was soft and serious.

"Do you think she's dead?"  
"I don't know," Emma admitted with a heavy sigh as she fell back against a pillow she'd dragged off the couch. "I would think that _if_ he reacted that way because he'd loved her, he wouldn't stop at anything to prevent whatever Moe might have done to her if it were reversible. But I would think that if she had died there'd be more...evidence, I guess?"

"And if you think about it, you'd rather she was dead than still suffering somewhere, waiting to be rescued, but you'd rather she's alive to be saved," Mary Margaret sighed in that wistful way she got sometimes, "and things just get knotted and jumbled."

"I am going to the library tomorrow to look through back-copies of _The Mirror_," Emma said from her back. "Hey," she sat up, "are you still, uh, whatever you were with Dr. Whale? Because if nothing else the _hospital_ probably keeps better records than the city and-" Emma trailed off at the look on Mary Margaret's face. "That bad huh?"

"Things didn't end...terribly well," she admitted. "But I still know people there from when I volunteered...and now that-" she stumbled and her eyes darted to Emma and then away, "I was thinking about starting volunteering there again, you know now that things have...calmed down a bit."

Emma fought down a heavy sigh and the urge to roll her eyes. She didn't have any say in what—or who—Mary Margaret did and so she'd keep her mouth shut, but she certainly didn't approve of the way things were going. A blind man could see how they cared for each other, but she knew that a guy who refused to make a choice was usually only trying to have his cake and some twinkies too. She would be much happier with them being together if David would decide if he was going to leave Katheryn or not so Mary Margaret at least knew where she stood.

"We'll see what I can find at the library first," Emma said at last as she stood to start cleaning up the few dishes they had used. "And if you decide to volunteer again, see what you can find out as long as you're there."


	2. Chapter 2

**Well, I did love last night's episode, but it also has ruined most of what I wrote about the Dwarves and the small allusion to the Blue Fairy I made. But I knew from the start this would eventually become an AU, it just happened sooner than I thought! **

**And for those who asked, this is available on Tumblr as well, I am "theredoormouse" there, no I am not involved in the Rumbelle war, I am made of kittens and cupcakes and rainbows. I couldn't write angst if I wanted to. In addition to that, this was supposed to be a short story, it now currently sits at five chapters and something like thirty thousand words. Until I lose my buffer (which I know will happen) you'll get a chapter a week. **

* * *

"Are you going to say anything, or are you going to sit here for the entire hour in silence?" Dr. Anderson asked, tapping his pen against the clipboard he held in one hand.

She looked up over the hills her knees created, pulled up as tight to her as she could get them. She always tried to keep herself as small as possible, curled into balls or with her shoulders hunched around her ears. As though if she took up a small enough space she wouldn't be of worth to them and they'd let her fade away.

_Just be brave_.

He stared for a long moment more and she pressed her cheek against her knee until it hurt; remembering kind words whispered long ago.

"There are four hundred and twenty three and two-thirds bricks in my room. Thirty-seven and three-quarters tiles in the ceiling, and seventy-two bolts in my door. I am counting the grates in the windows now."

"What are you up to?" he asked, interested. She wasn't allowed books, or possessions at all, it was the curse of being in the section of the mental ward reserved for the dangerous, the violent, or the ones likely to hurt themselves. But she still found ways to learn. She waited, she listened, she considered, she took what she knew and drew from it and she kept her mask on, waiting.

She had been given a miracle all those months ago, a chance to be brave, to be quiet, and still and to brave this trial until a better life. This miracle gave her a _chance_ at a better life, she was realizing more and more as she saw more and more broken, shattered souls dragging around like wraiths in a swamp, weighted down by the chains they carried even if no one else could see them.

_Just...be...brave._

"I don't know if I should count each window separately, or count all of them together. And I can't reach them to measure."

"How do you measure them?" he prodded. She wasn't sure he'd ever said anything to her that _wasn't_ in the form of a question and she was certain she had been here for over a year, because she remembered being taken away, screaming and kicking around Christmas time, and even though she had lost more time than she cared to remember to a grey, damp _fuzziness _in her mind, she had seen one of the nurses wearing a Santa hat, and one day they'd all been given gingerbread cookies and eggnog.

"The human thumb," she held out her hand, "is roughly an inch wide. If I could have a ruler I could do better than _roughly_. Even a pen would help because I could measure with it and write out the mathematical equations," she said, not looking at him, but holding her breath all the same.

"Now, Marie, you _know _why we can't do that, don't you?" he asked with that cloyingly sweet tone that always made the pit drop out of her stomach. She curled her arm back around herself and buried her face further into her knee, ignoring the pain blossoming in her cheek as she pressed harder.

It wasn't so hard really, practice made it easy, like muscle memory, like when she was younger and had taken dance and could do the routines without thinking because her very body remembered the moves.

She had read the _Count of Monte Cristo _once, long ago, and when she lay in the dark she fancied herself Edmund Dantes, and that she was just waiting for her chance. And she knew, as long as it took, as long as she may be trapped, counting stones again and again and again that she wasn't lost until she named them. And that, at least, was a goal.

"Marie?" he asked, lowering his clipboard. "Marie don't do this, please, don't you want to get better?" Dr. Anderson pressed and pressed, but she didn't move from her seat and she kept her breathing low and even, and when the nurse came to take her away she fought and screamed.

That was the hardest part. It never got easier, no matter how many times she was reminded it was necessary. She wasn't stupid enough to think, after all she had learned, that they would ever let her out of this place, whether she were aggressive or not, but she knew that if the people who had put her here thought she'd gone mad from being locked up, they might not notice other things.

People have certain realities they wish to believe are true, she knew it was a fact of life, and they would believe those things because they wanted to, and it made the lying easier.

* * *

Emma set the large tome down with a billowing cloud of dust and a grunt as she swept her hand through the air as though she could clear it. This library was a study in contradictions, she was quickly realizing—not that she was, exactly, a common patron of libraries. She actually couldn't remember the last time she'd been in a library since she got her GED when she was 23.

And even that had just been going to the reference desk and asking for help.

She flopped heavily into the chair and flipped the book open.

But it seemed odd to her that the library was kept crisp and clean, clearly well cared-for, but they didn't even have microfiche machines, and rather kept large, bound books filled with all the past newspapers. They had books and movies and music by the droves but where it came to the town itself, records and copies of old newspapers and even old yearbooks from the school? It was like someone had hastily thrown everything together to give the impression that it had been collected and organized so long as no one actually went through it.

It was surreal in a way and she wasn't sure whether all the paper files were like this, or if...or if...Well, she hated to admit it but a small part of her pointed out that it seemed like the sort of thing that would happen if a town were really full of fairy tale creatures and had only come into being as part of a curse.

Henry had even explained that before she came here time didn't move, which was why the clock had stopped. Little things would change, like he would age and sometimes people did small things differently, but the town was stuck living the same year over and over again. She had tried to do what Archie had taught her and find the meaning behind the words Henry used, but it seemed pretty straightforward to her.

_Every year on January the eight_, he had explained, _Ruby decides to leave town and have an adventure, and she and her grandmother get into an argument and her grandmother has a heart attack._

_ She didn't this year, _Emma had pointed out with a pained smile. She didn't want to dash Henry's dreams and to be honest she was coming to admire the kid's imagination, but at the same time he couldn't live his life thinking this was _real_.

Just because David had actually woken up from his coma didn't change Emma's plan. She wanted to let him learn the truth of it on his own, and to help him where she could and give him the chance to learn it.

_That's because you started time again!_ Henry had grinned.

She had sighed then and now she was furious with herself.

"Come on," she grumbled to herself. "We're trying to talk the kid _out_ of this, not talk yourself into it."

She flipped through the pages, trying to focus on her quest to find Marie French. If only to understand more about Mr. Gold. She wasn't sure she trusted him as an allied force working with her against Regina, and if he turned out to be an enemy she wanted to know how to fight him.

Marie, it seemed, had not died at birth, and Emma found a picture from when the girl was only just in middle school, and was pictured with a group of children running around on the play castle when it was new and first built. A group of school children, in uniforms.

From there she found the yearbooks and watched Marie French grow up through her pictures, going from a scrawny, undersized little girl to a willowy young woman who looked at home in the wide, billowing skirts of the only club she joined in her four years of high school, the swing dancing club.

Emma stared at the picture in the yearbook before her. The girl's hair was a cascade of brown curls that were flickering almost rusty-red at the edges—which could have just been a trick of the light –and her eyes were blue, and somehow shone the bluer for the yellow sweater she was wearing.

_Do the brave thing, _the quote under her picture read_, and bravery will follow._

"Are you through with this?" a soft woman's voice asked and Emma whipped around in surprise. A woman dressed in a floor-length blue skirt and long dark hair stood near the end of Emma's table, by the large tome of newspapers she had hauled out and never put back. She reminded Emma of the sort of people that traveled with the Renaissance fairs, all fluttering skirts and piled on jewelry.

"Uh, uh" she shook her head as though to clear it of cobwebs, "yes, yeah, sorry, thank you," she added as the woman picked up the book and dropped it heavily onto her cart.

"You wish to find someone?" she asked, nodding at the piles of yearbooks.

"Uh, yeah? Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what happened to someone, but I don't have a lot to go off of really, just a name and-" Emma floundered, trying to think of what else useful she had beyond the girl's name, "And she was a swing dancer."

"You _could_ go try Doc Erthal at the hospital," she suggested, turning away with a chime of her jewelry. There were streaks of blue in her hair. "He's a local history buff," she offered with a shrug of one thin shoulder.

"Thank you," Emma offered even as the woman continued to swish away, and the length of her skirt made it look almost like she was floating.

* * *

She had trouble keeping track of time, she felt like there was an interesting behavioral experiment buried under the tragedy, that if you take away a human's ability to tell time—an arbitrary concept really—and remove outside stimuli like _lights_ and give them only three feedings a day, an hour with a man—infuriating, arrogant, bore of a man who only ever asks questions and never ever the right ones—and then once a week two hours with another man...what will happen? Will human beings turn out to be nocturnal, only really rising in the day because of historic ties to farming?

She knew, she looked at things—herself, her life—too clinically. But it helped, it helped her to push it all away and watch the woman who paces her cell, who counts bricks, and who tackles unanswerable philosophical questions.

She thought that _that_ woman was brave, but if Marie were left to rot in that cell for so many long—coherent-months she would go mad.

He explained, once, that they meet on Wednesdays and she clung to this knowledge because while she recognizes that time is an arbitrary and human constraint, it makes her feel _human _to cling to it. She would sit through a quick physical by the nurse: temperature, blood pressure, weight, height, and a litany of embarrassing questions she's grown entirely desensitized to over the months she has been answering them.

Then the nurse would leave and he would come into the room and close the door and sit and put his head in shaking hands and apologize that this is all he can do for her. He talked, he told her of the outside world, and he would give her books.

Marie had always been in the Aggressive Population ward, so she couldn't have anything in her cell and couldn't even touch anything without being _allowed _it first. She wasn't even allowed to have pictures on her wall or the flowers that sometimes her father sent.

But on Wednesdays she was allowed an hour—usually-to read. It took her forever to finish books this way, but over the months she found out that the woman in the cell could get used to anything.

He also took the time to tell her what symptoms other patients are exhibiting and how—if it is not obvious—she could replicate these.

Violence was the big one, and she hated that one the most, but it became habit after three months and no one noticed that she pulled back before biting, or telegraphed her moves, trying her best to make it clear what she was about to do so she didn't hurt anyone.

Only twice had she hurt someone faking this symptom. Once a male nurse yanked her arm too hard and she caught her feet against the wall and pushed backward, misjudging her own strength in the haze of _getoffow!_ And crashed him hard into the opposite wall. His head cracked against the cement and she had slept fitfully all week until Wednesday when she learned that the nurse was fine, he had gotten a concussion, and he'd needed stitches—only three—but was fine.

The other time had been intentional. Dr. Anderson had asked if she was angry with her father for never visiting, had pressed and pressed and she had, at last, picked up a heavy crystal vase that held a fake lotus flower and flung it at him. She had missed but he'd crashed so haplessly to the floor that he'd hit the glass coffee table with one arm.

It had been in a sling for a full month and the next day the coffee table was gone completely.

The counting was two-fold. Some patients experienced a worsening of OCD traits they had already had, and others became hyperactive to varying degrees. There was also the worrying fact that she had been sleeping so much. She knew that her meals were supposed to be five hours apart during the day, and with this she had come to realize she was sleeping fourteen to eighteen hours a day for a lack of anything to do.

That was why she had begun to count, to pace, to do jumping-jacks and push-ups.

Sometimes she would even try to remember her old dance routines in her room.

Then she had gotten the book about tests for your memory, she played hours of chess in her mind after reading a book on how to play. She supposed, in a weird way, she was grateful for that. She had never learned to play chess until she came here.

She practiced math, which was never a strong point of hers, and hard to do when she had no way of checking if she was right or not, but she tried anyway. It kept her busy, and that was what she needed.

* * *

Walking to the hospital later, Emma wondered why this doctor would know anything at all about one little girl, or why she had trusted the strange librarian's advice so implicitly; like it was completely unquestionable.

She shook herself, pushing that to the side to figure out later. She liked _solving_ mysteries, making them from mysteries into definable, explainable things, but one at a time was her limit.

Storybrooke hospital was, rather, a teaching hospital and a large complex of smaller buildings all growing around a central building with a tall tower. It reminded her—she supposed from Henry—of the tall tower that a princess might find herself trapped in, waiting for her lover fair to come rescue her.

That was, for the record, what she had always hated about fairy tales, that the girl had to wait for some guy to come rescue her. And when she was eight she had tried to tell stories about a princess who rescued herself. Sally had shouted that that wasn't how stories went.

She used a side entrance rather than the front, and found a small entryway with a large central sitting area that appeared to be a study nook for students rather than a waiting room. Two women in white coats were slouched in chairs, arguing over a book on the table between them, one was sketching something with a pen furiously in the margins. A man sat hunched over a book, headphones jammed in his ears and a coffee from Granny's sitting at his elbow and hurriedly an older woman in a nurse's uniform was walking past and then seemed to double-take when she saw Emma.

"Are you lost?" she asked, and it was with that tone of voice of someone who knew their way around confidently and was used to helping the lost find their way. Her name tag read Barbara.

"Uh, yes, sort of," Emma admitted. "I am trying to find Doctor Erthal, it's not for an appointment, I want to ask him-" she caught the woman's eyes flick down to the badge on Emma's hip and back up to Emma's face, "-a few questions."

It wasn't an official investigation, but she let the woman think whatever she wanted and as the mystery seemed to only continue to deepen it might become one faster than Emma liked to think.

The nurse motioned Emma to follow and took a sharp corner, suddenly finding them in a small office that was homey but just vague enough not to belong to anyone in particular. She bent at her waist to the keyboard of a computer and her fingers clicked at the keys for a moment before she looked up at Emma. "Is it _pressing_?" she asked, and Emma got the feeling that it wasn't asked in the same manner that most people would ask, but rather in the way a hospital would ask.

"It's not life-or-death," she said carefully. "But I would like to speak to him _today_ to at least find a time to speak properly."

"He works mostly administration _these days_, but his Wednesdays and Thursdays are full, he's helping with a clinical trial and those days he always gives the weekly check-up to the people involved in the study under him. Two of his residents," she explained, "take the others."

"What do you mean," Emma asked, furrowing her brow, "_these days_, is he retiring?"

"No, oh no," she frowned, shaking her head, "he's only forty-five, and really he looks quite a bit younger than that," she assured Emma, "but...you see," she looked around and sat at a table, motioning Emma to do the same. "A few years ago, before I was here, he was the best Trauma Surgeon in our ER. He was the one who worked on David Nolan, the one who woke up from his coma?"

"Yeah," Emma scoffed, "I know David Nolan."

"Well, anyway, it was after that, but before I was here, and something happened. There was an accident, and he was the Doctor on call and..." she shook her head. "No one likes to talk about it, of course, but whatever happened shook him up. He tried switching just to surgery rather than the demands of the ER and Trauma, but his hands would begin to shake the minute he picked up a scalpel."

The woman clicked her nails against the table. "Everyone here loves him, so he heads up the department of Surgery now, and sticks to paperwork mostly. Even unable to perform surgery the students still fight tooth and claw every year to get the coveted two positions he offers under him," she explained.

"He's not in any trouble," Emma finally soothed her fears, "I am looking into a," she paused, considered, "a cold-case that has recently had some new light shed on it, and I am hoping he can help. I heard he might remember something, and now, knowing what he di—" she caught herself, "knowing his background as I do, I think he's my best shot."

The nurse nodded and smiled. "He should finish up around six, that's when the patients on the ward are fed, the psych unit is on the other side of the hospital from his office but he's usually there before six-thirty and he stays at least until eight unless it's a late night, if you don't mind waiting."

"Psych Unit?" Emma asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes," Barbara nodded, not understanding.

"I thought he was a surgeon?"

"Oh! Oh, right," she shook herself. "They're doing a clinical trial right now, the Mayor helped get it for us-"

"Oh the Mayor," Emma sighed and it was Barbara's turn to raise an eyebrow but she continued on anyway:

"Antipsychotics are very dangerous, and at best the turn the patients into manageable vegetables, and at the worst the side effects can rival the symptoms they are meant to suppress," she explained. "So we're testing a new antipsychotic. Most of the patients are still coherent enough to give their consent, and the ones who aren't we have permission from their guardians," she said before it had even occurred to Emma to object, "but, there's more than just the mental effects to consider, so in addition the the psychiatry staff overseeing the project Doctor Erthal and his Residents helping. Once a week they give regular check-ups to the patients, and if there is any problem that arises they're the doctor that is sent for."

"He seems awfully high up the ladder to be just giving check-ups," Emma pressed, she didn't think this had anything to do with her questions, but she would always be a bail bondsperson first and she liked to know everything she could about a person before she went up against them, which was how this all had started in the first place.

"It's more complicated than that, a general check-up yes, but this he has to know what to look for, the first signs of problems which could be serious, as well as to ignore what isn't a problem. Some of the patients can be paranoid or hypochondriacal and check ups can be infinitely harder when you can't communicate with the patient, or cannot trust that they will not lie outright to you."

"Oh," Emma made a face. "Okay." It made sense now that the woman had explained it. And it fit with a man who had been a master at his craft and now found he couldn't do much of anything with it any longer but still _loved _what he had done.

* * *

"Sit still," the man hmm'd quietly as he pulled the hooked needle through his friend's rough skin.

"It _hurts_," Grumpy complained, living up to his name. Doc sighed and rolled his eyes but kept at his work while someone—he wasn't paying attention to who—was holding a lantern over his shoulder.

"You slammed into a stone wall, friend, of course it _hurts," _Doc explained with a warm, friendly smile the grumpy dwarf didn't see. "You take too many risks," he said, softly, seriously.

"You don't take _enough _risks," Grumpy hissed darkly. It was an old fight between them, as old as the mine they worked, and as old as their friendship. Grumpy would rather they make more effort to undermine the Evil Queen who ruled to the North. She controlled many mines and it was her tyranny they escaped in coming _here_ to this distant place, and it had been Happy, another of their band, who had discovered this particular vein they now mined.

They found only enough to support themselves, and they saved the little left over, hoping one day to help the Resistance to the Queen's rule.

Grumpy wanted nothing of saving and planning and everything to be action and _doing_. If he had his way with nothing but their old mining equipment they would make a run on the Queen's palace. Doc tried to be pragmatic and point out that their deaths would mean little in the grand scheme and so what was the point.

To which Grumpy would usually follow that dying a hero's death was better than leading a coward's life.

The others were smart enough to stay out of such arguments. Either way nothing would be done without the full consent of the group, and they were content enough to wait for a better plan that taking out as many of the Queen's dark guards before they were cut down. But arguing with Grumpy, especially when he was in such a foul mood as this, was never a smart idea.

Doc was the only one of them who would even attempt to deal with Grumpy when he was like this.

Though Grumpy eschewed the benefits of fighting back, his current injury had nothing to do with that part of his personality and everything to do with simply slipping in the mines. They had been descending to a deeper portion and he had slipped, the rope he was using swinging out and then slamming him hard into the unforgiving stone walls.

For a heartbeat he had hung still, swaying precariously too far above those at the bottome and too far below those at the top to be helped. They had feared the worst until he'd stirred and sworn a blue-streak that echoed up and down the carved halls of the mines.

If he was well enough to come up with such creative things to swear about they were certain he wasn't too badly hurt, and when they had gotten him back up where Doc was—the only of their number with medical training—their hopes had been proven true. He was well enough to mine that day, and even to make the climb down, but he would need stitches for a long gash down his thigh where a sharp rock had torn through both his breeches and his flesh. Bashful had nearly fainted—never being one for the sight of blood—when he saw that you could see the thick mass of muscle and even a faint white shimmer of bone in the light of the lantern.

Doc, however, assured the group—and the nervous ones at the base of the cavern who could not see what was happening—that Grumpy would be fine, but he might need a staff to walk, and he would have to be careful not to tear his stitches.

Doc had actually suggested that Grumpy take the chance to return to their little home and rest for a few days, but Grumpy would hear none of it, so Doc had conceded and the present argument had begun in earnest.

"He's well enough to argue," Happy pointed out from where he was keeping Bashful company as the man huddled away from the impromptu surgery. Just the knowledge of what was happening was enough to make Bashful a little queasy. "He can't be that badly off."

Bashful made a small noise of agreement that went so far as to _try _and be a laugh and he pocked at the dirt which—at this level—was still soft and loamy.

"Hey," Happy urged quietly, shifting to sit beside the smaller dwarf.

"Are we gonna be here forever?" Bashful asked, looking up before glancing back down again quickly.

"Bash," Happy started with a heavy sigh, not entirely sure what he could say.

"Grumpy says we should fight back, Doc says we should wait," he shrugged uselessly, "I don't know who's right, but just _sitting here_ barely scratching out a living..." Bashful trailed off, mumbling a little until finally falling into silence.

"Bash," Happy tried again. "Charging in will only get us killed without a plan-"

"I know," it was the only time Happy could ever remember that Bashful spoke up at all, let alone over someone else. And he fell from his undignified squat into a sitting position with a huff. Surprised, and ready for a serious conversation.

"I don't think Grumpy's right," Bashful explained wringing his work-rough hands. "But if Doc has his way we will live out our lives in this valley and be too old to be of any use by the time he is ready to act."

"It's Doc's way," Happy started, glancing to his friend and realizing the two of them were, for the time, ignored. "He's worried for us, and wants us to be safe, so he'd rather hid in cowardice rather than see us hurt. He used to be a warrior you know? He fought in the Ogre Wars when they cropped up a few decades ago.

Dwarves, as anyone could tell you, lived long lives, not as long as some of the magical creatures throughout the Enchanted Forest, but longer certainly than humans. Bashful was the youngest at only fifty-three.

"He did?" the younger turned to look in surprise and only saw the back of his leader's head.

"He did. He was honored for his bravery even, but his brother fighting beside him died, and I don't think Doc's ever forgiven himself that. That's the only reason he has us hide here."

"Does Grumpy know?"

"Grumpy does, but he still disagrees. He is rough and wants to prove he is tough. He is serious when he says he would rather die a hero, or even in the attempt of being a hero, than living out life scared. But he forgets that there are other lives in the balance too. It is why he will always eventually give in to Doc's command to stay where we are. He doesn't want to see the rest of us hurt, but it drives him to distraction being stuck here."

* * *

Gold sat hard on his couch, laying his cane beside him and bending to dig his fingers into the aching muscles. Most of them had been carved away, which was why that damnable cane was necessary, and what little was left seemed to ache constantly.

Like Regina, he couldn't access his magic in this world directly. But there were benefits available to him because it was still in his body the same way that Sydney Glass still followed Regina about endlessly and Archie Hopper still carried around that ridiculous umbrella of his and spouted the ideals of a clear conscious.

Regina still had her vault filled with hearts even if she now lacked the means of gaining new ones. Much of what he had was merely contractual, like his power over Regina but it was also that his magic still wound through him even if he couldn't use it, and that helped the ache in his leg, bringing it down to a dull throb he could usually ignore but for rare occasions, like now.

Spending the night on that wretched cot in the police station, plus the cold and the rain and sleet of the night before, and the physical exertion...it was too much all piled together like that and he was now in agony.

He stared at the little cup where it sat on his low coffee table and his fingers worked the awkward pieces of muscle. She would have never approved of his treatment of Moe French, but then he was a coward, she had been right about that. About everything from the empty heart and chipped cup to the fact that he was a coward.

It was easier to drive her away than admit that maybe he was vulnerable enough to love and be loved, and it was easier to beat Moe French senseless rather than admit it was him who had earned a beating.

Moe French had turned her out and driven Belle to death, but he would not have had the chance if Rumpelstiltskin had not turned her away first. It had been he who left her vulnerable. Of course she was sweet and trusting enough to return to her father, she was foolish and naïve enough to think that a monster deserved love.

He had left her weak and unprotected, turning her out to protect himself. He was lucky the worst that had happened was she had been beaten hard enough to drive her to suicide. The queen could have gotten her, could have turned his Belle into one of her heartless wretches. She could have shredded away everything that made her _Belle _and left only a marionette in place of a vibrant, warm girl.

His fingers twisted against a knot in his leg and his closed his eyes, unsure if it was pain or penance.

The cup sat still and silent on the table, but when he looked at it he could see her eyes in the faded blue paint. He liked to think that if he were faced with her again, here and now, he would rectify all his mistakes. He liked to think that he would apologize and tell her how his heart ached for her, explain she was right and tell her he changed his mind...

But the truth was he was a coward, just as he had been that day so many ages ago. If he saw her on the street he wouldn't even have the courage to approach her. He could act out meeting her, finding her in his mind a thousand times and a thousand ways, but at the end of the day he knew they were only fantasies and not simply because she was dead and gone and buried in a place he could not even visit her body.

He wasn't even certain he could do that, just the simple act of depositing roses on a grave someplace required more courage than a cowardly _thing_ like him could possibly muster up.

He had likened her once to a house cat, the sort that was spoiled and pampered and yet when threatened threw up her hackles and extended her claws and fought until the other submitted. If that was the case he was a hedgehog, curling up and sticking out his spikes and hoping whatever was attacking him got bored and wondered away.

The bravest thing he had ever done had been signing away his name on that contract of Cinderella's knowing it would see him in jail and knowing what it meant. And that wasn't brave at all, it was cowardly. He had made that wretched curse, and he knew Regina would cast it in the face of Snow White's happiness, and rather than wage war on her and best her—he was the more powerful—he let himself be captured, let the spell be cast, and waited for a savior, a blonde woman who had grown up longing for parents.

He let a child suffer the way he had never wanted for Bae just so that _he _did not have to act.

A coward.

A coward alone with an empty heart, a chipped cup, and an aching leg.

And for all he had hoped all that rested in his stomach after dealing with Moe French was a hot twist of _guilt_. Belle would have been disappointed in him, and he couldn't even say it felt good to beat the man because it didn't. Regina had stolen the cup—he should have _known—_and Moe would never have had the chance to shut out his daughter had Rumpelstiltskin not sent her away first. And he couldn't even admit out loud that it was his fault. That was how cowardly he was, he _knew it _and yet it was still too hard to choke out.

* * *

"-you _can't go in there—_she's not to be—Madam Mayor!" Yelena, Regina's secretary shouted as the door pushed open and she tumbled in followed by Moe French who barreled in after her more like a tank.

"It's alright Yelena, my door is always open to the citizens of Storybrooke," Regina said smoothly, her red lips pulling back from immaculately white teeth. Yelena shot her a look over Moe's good shoulder that showed how displeased she was with this whole situation and then stormed out in a huff. She liked things to go her way and did not take it well when they didn't, which was probably what Regina liked about her.

The door closed with a click while Moe lumbered into the center of the office, his neck still in a brace, his face swollen and black-and-blue and his arm in a sling that was as much for the broken bone in his arm as it was for his shoulder. His leg was in a cast up to his thigh but he'd opted for a crutch rather than the wheelchair Regina _knew_ Doctor Whale had suggested.

He didn't speak, he just _stared _at her and Regina tried not to let on how much it unnerved her. Moe French was stable, like the other people of Storybrooke, and he was the type to blurt and bluster and shout, not the type to sit in silent _judgment _like he was.

"Are you feeling better?" she asked finally, conversationally, "would you like a seat?" she motioned to the couch even as she stood and walked around her desk.

"You promised me if I let you handle it you'd take care of our family. You promised she would be safe and you'd keep that greedy twist off my back," he told her, and his voice was only a little slurred around the edges from where Gold had knocked a couple of teeth out of Moe's thick skull. Regina narrowed her eyes.

"It is not my fault you continued to make deals with him after our," she sucked at her teeth a moment, "arrangement."

Moe stamped his crutch down onto the ground. "I had to because there were _hospital _bills to pay. Experimental treatments and 24-hour care," he shouted. "You said she'd _get better_, did you mean that one? Or were you as honest about that as you were about keeping _him _away?"

"I don't think I like what you're implying," Regina told him coolly, taking a dainty seat on the edge of one chair and raising perfect eyebrows at him.

Her office was starkly black and white except for the bowl of blood-red apples in a bowl, everything was ordered and designer, just like Regina, regal and kept and perfect.

Moe French with his misshapen nose and blood under his fingernails and the way his clothes were still those of last night and so crusty with brown patches of dried blood did not belong, and he certainly was no match for the ruler of this realm.

"You promised she would get better," Moe's voice was quiet, his eyes cast downward to the floor.

"Mr. French," she soothes gently, standing and touching her hand delicately to his good arm, "These things take time, she is so broken, the crash took so much out of her-"

He couldn't even remember how long it had been since the accident that had taken his wife. They had been going on a family trip, he and his wife and their daughter Marie, and he had been driving, they had hit a patch of black ice on the old Toll Bridge and careened over the side. His wife had died instantly and he had been injured along with Marie.

When he had woken in the hospital the mayor herself had been there to tell him the news, to sit with him while he cried over his lost wife, and to tell him his daughter had gone mad, PTSD she said, mixed with a psychotic break not unlike a nervous breakdown.

He had been knocked unconscious but apparently Marie had not, she had lain awake all night and into the next morning before they were found, a child still and with the headrest of the seat pinning her in place, her mother's corpse hanging over her in the upturned car.

It was too much for a young girl to take, and so Regina had told him to let her take care of it—he had enough to worry about with his wife gone.

She told him they would say Marie had won a scholarship to a boarding school, and that way, Regina had smiled, when she came back, when she was better, there would be a life for her.

A life without the stigma of being mad.

"He said I shut her out," Moe spoke softly, falling finally onto the couch, his leg splayed out awkwardly and her nose crinkled wondering what those clothes of his were getting on her couch.

"What?"

"Mr. Gold," Moe said, looking up and looking...not brave, but that place where you are too scared to care anymore and go on simply because there's no other way and you face a monster behind you and one before you. "When he was..." Moe choked, shook his head, winced, "the night before last," he said, "Mr. Gold said I had her love and I shut her out."

"Mr. Gold is a cold, cruel man, I should think you of all people in this town would know that the best," Regina told him with that gentle smile curling over her lips and getting no where near to her eyes.

Moe watched her for a moment, his eyes shifting quickly back and forth like he was trying to read something. "What have you done to my daughter?"

* * *

He was only a Baron, and not a very wealthy one at that, and his manor hadn't really been repaired even with the Ogres far from their boarders now. Still.

"You cannot have your people thinking that your daughter _ran _from him," she pressed. "They will think that she is a coward, and that her father is a coward, they will seek other towns, other jobs. They will not be able to trust that you can keep them safe."

"They...they miss her though," he said, looking down at his goblet of wine. Apple wine, care of the Queen who now sat across from him.

"People are fickle, in groups most of all," the queen soothed softly. "What I suggest is an elegant solution that benefits all of us. With her previous fiance missing and with these people who would brand her a coward," she urged, "there is no life for her here. But she is unknown in other kingdoms, my kingdom. And really," she reminded him with a smile and a tilt of her head, "being a lady-in-waiting to a queen is so much better than married off to some nameless, fameless knight who got his position only because the other two squires of the previous knight died beside him in war."

"You will take care of my daughter?" he asked, glancing up at her and gripping his goblet tighter.

"She will be treated like a queen," she laughed, a high bell-like sound.

"Alright, but you have to promise me, she'll be safe. If_ he _comes back for her," the baron said, his voice firm.

"I promise you Baron," she smiled, her ruby-red lips curving upwards, "he won't even know she's there."

* * *

**Lurker Person: I had to comment somehow on your lovely review, although I know I'm not really supposed to do it here, so I'll make it fast. Thank you so much for the very sweet compliments about my writing, and I love Emma tons, probably because she's so unlike me which makes her fun to write, along with everyone in Storybrooke. And actually there are more allusions to her being a Noir Detective type in later chapters that worked in just because of how you phrased that! :) I hope I continue to live up to your high standards (Although I don't know that my word choice will ever improve but if I had to choose I'd rather be better with characters anyway. :)) as the story progresses.**


	3. Chapter 3

**I continue to love this story, and my lovely, wonderful readers most of all. **

**I am particularly excited about this chapter because I get to introduce my FAVORITE fairy tale of all time here. I hope the show will tackle it one day, but it's more on the side of obscure and there are so very many more popular ones they could tackle instead.  
**

* * *

"Feel like talking yet?" Emma asked, setting out a plate of sticky buns as Mary Margaret shambled out of her room, still wrapped in a fluffy robe. She hadn't baked them, Emma was more than capable of hotwiring a car, picking a lock, and finding people no matter where they were hiding. She could not cook, however, to save her life. She could manage sandwiches and boiling water for instant things that came in boxes.

Instead, she had gotten up early and gotten fresh sticky buns from the Storybrooke bakery and Mary Margaret's favorite coffee from Granny's.

"Not really; you'll just say you were right, which I know, and I was wrong, which I know, and that I should have known better, which I should have," Mary Margaret grumbled, flopping into a chair at the table, then folding her arms and resting her chin on them.

Emma raised her brows but said nothing. She liked Mary Margaret and would even consider them friends—not out loud, that got you hurt—and she wasn't really certain how friends were supposed to deal with something like this. But she did know one thing:

"If it makes you feel better, I have done way stupider things when it comes to relationships," Emma offered.

"Yeah?" Mary Margaret sniffled around a bite of sticky bun.

"Yes. Letting a guy you really do _care _for fool you by telling you he's going to do the right thing and trusting him because you care so much? That's _nothing_ in the grand scheme of ways you can do stupid things. You at least thought that he was going to come through and do the right thing," Emma pointed out with a cock of her head.

"Hmm," Mary Margaret managed, picking up another sticky bun.

Emma considered saying something else, trying to think of what Mary Margaret might say if their positions were reversed, but she finally settled into silence and ate her share of the breakfast.

"Did you find Marie French?" Mary Margaret asked when they were cleaning up the dishes.

"I am going to talk with a doctor today. He might know where she is."

"Have you talked to her father in all this?"

"No," Emma shook her head. "If Mr. Gold can be believed, Moe French had a hand in whatever happened to the girl, so I'm not going to him until I have _something_ to go with. Evidence or even rumor that approaches probable cause."

"So what do you think happened? Do you think he hurt her?"

"Mr. Gold isn't about to win any humanitarian awards and he's got his hands in some pretty sketchy deals, but the biggest thing you hear loan sharks say is 'dead men don't pay debts' and Gold's not dumb. He decided that whatever Moe had done was worth losing whatever the man had borrowed from him. And," she sighed and furrowed her brow, leaning against the counter with one hip. "The way he clung to that stupid cup? Whatever happened wasn't good," Emma settled finally, shaking her head. "I'm going to go check in at the station and do a patrol, catch up on some of the paperwork I've been ignoring," she sent a rakish grin to Mary Margaret, "and then meet with this doctor. Hopefully at the least he can give me enough to send me in the right direction."

"I talked with some people about the hospital about volunteering again," Mary Margaret mentioned.

"Well if you happen to hear any rumors about the missing daughter of our resident florist do share," Emma grinned, "And feel better," Emma murmured gently as she walked out the door. She couldn't turn around and face Mary Margaret after such a declaration of her caring, but she imagined the woman was smiling and it kept a smile on Emma's face all the way to the police station.

Emma found she liked this new routine her life had settled into, even if it was a little boring apart from little girls who grew up in the pages of dusty yearbooks and then disappeared. She liked coming home to someone, she liked being _missed_ if she stayed out late.

And while she didn't believe Henry's crazy theory of fairy tales being true, she did have to admit that Mary Margaret possessed that quality of all good teachers where you felt as though she genuinely cared about you, and Emma liked to think that if she _had _grown up with a mother, it would be someone soft and sweet like Mary Margaret.

Someone who genuinely cared about the people around her, put cinnamon in her hot chocolate, and who knew that sometimes it didn't take _words_ to comfort, but merely a person _being _there.

Emma had always imagined, all those years ago, that when she saved Henry from a life of living out of the back of a car—which she had been doing at the time of his birth—and taking wretched jobs that barely paid anything just to be able to eat, that she was giving him up to a family with a mother like Mary Margaret. The kind of mother that Emma would have wanted, and the kind of mother she knew she could never be.

She loved the kid as weird as he could be, but she knew she wasn't cut out to be a mother. That didn't mean she didn't want to be in his life not that she had met him, but she couldn't be a mother. She didn't think Regina was doing much better of a job, but at least he had a stable roof over his head, three meals a day, and was going to that fancy prep school that could actually keep up with that brain Emma _knew _he didn't get from her.

She had been without and she had to admit that even as miserable as he seemed sometimes and as much as she did loath Regina, she would rather that Henry grew up there, under her care, than with Emma.

She'd been without. She would much rather be miserable and safe with a full belly than cold and alone. She had seen the kids who worked three jobs to stay in school and then got out and got that fabulous job with their degree and sharp mind and never looked back to their damp floor and apartment with no furniture. If he couldn't have both, she would rather her son never had to spend a moment wondering where his next meal was coming from, never had to break into a car so he could sleep somewhere other than the ground, and never knew what it was like to be eighteen and alone and faced with insurmountable odds.

Let him fight imaginary dragons and try to break the curse of his Evil Queen adoptive mother. That he could grow past.

But once he got a rap sheet and came to a place where the local cops knew you by sight, that he could never grow out of with a million years to try.

* * *

Henry sat on the edge of the new playground—which looked like the palace where Snow White had lived until the evil queen drove her away—and watched the other kids play. He wondered what it would be like now the others would grow up too; he had tried, at first, talking to his mom about it, and then Archie when she sent him there, but she didn't seem to want to address it.

The fact that her curse, which made time stand still and prevented anything ending, could not prevent him from growing. He could feel memories trying to press into his mind, new thoughts, new friends, each year making _that _group of students the ones he had grown up with all along.

But it didn't work.

He hadn't figured out why that was yet. At first he thought it was just because he wasn't from their world and so her magic had more trouble effecting him, but then he had gotten to the last few pages. The pages that he had been smart enough to tear from the book and Emma had been smart enough to burn.

In those final pages it was revealed how it would be the child of the child who would bring Emma back to her parents, and when he realized no one could leave or come to Storybrooke he had learned that he had to be special, and if he was special that meant that his mother _was_ the Savior. He had also realized, in one dark, terrifying moment, that his mother, the Evil Queen herself, _did not know who he was_.

He knew she was the Evil Queen, but she did not know that Emma would break the curse and that the only reason Emma would return to town was living under her own roof. In that one respect Good had a secret the Queen did not know.

And maybe that was why he got bits and pieces, _shadows _really, of memories but still remained the only one to age and grow and change. He lived his life out in the right order while everyone else remained the same.

He snorted as he flipped through the pages of the book. And adults wondered why he had such a hard time making friends, when he knew that he'd eventually outgrow them all, and now that they were aging too and he finally had a chance? Well, he was still the odd one out. Never a part of the games; his mother ran the town and he was always _reading_. He'd spent ten years isolated from kids his own age—he didn't even begin to know how to make friends with any of these people.

He had learned to multiply four-digit numbers in his head because his mom wanted him to, he'd memorized the periodic table of elements, and he was reading on a tenth grade level even if he stuck mostly to his book of fairy tales now. He'd trained Pongo to have Mexican Standoff duels with him and he'd learned to do a rubix cube in a minute flat.

He'd also learned that he could ruin Archie's life by switching the stickers so the cube was impossible to finish.

Henry had taught himself to play chess and for an entire summer had sneaked into Mr. Gold's shop every day and moved one piece. And, like an unspoken agreement Gold played the other side. He never mentioned it, never even made eye-contact when Henry came into the shop, but they played that way for months until one day Henry came in and the opposing king was laying on his side.

Henry could not stop himself from smiling the entire rest of the day.

He had found ways to keep himself amused and sane in the presence of something beyond the abilities of a normal child, but none of it had prepared him for dealing with kids his own age.

A girl with honey-blonde hair did a flip off the monkey bars and landed in a shower of wood chips, smiling at Henry.

He tried to smile back but another boy called her name and she was off like a shot before Henry had even decided how to ask her name. His smile fell before it could fully form and he pulled his book up to his chest like it could protect him somehow from these strange people he didn't understand.

Henry's mom had made him start taking French lessons and he was reading _Watership Down _right now, _Les garennes de Watership Down _really, which he'd actually never gotten around to reading in English so this was the first time he was learning about Fiver and Hazel and Henry found he understood _them _even in French better than he did the children who were supposed to be his peers.

With a sigh that condensed into fog in the cool air before him Henry stood and walked away from the playground leaving the other children behind.

He walked into town and considered turning toward the police station and seeing if Emma would keep him company for a while, but she had been busy lately and with his mom curtailing their time together he knew it stressed Emma out when he sneaked over, even if she _did _seem to have fun.

Home didn't even rank on his list of places to spend his afternoon knowing his mother wouldn't be home until after five anyway. He headed in the direction of the ice cream parlor for lack of anywhere else to go. He liked having ice cream on cold days because it felt like he could trick his body into thinking it was warm and he was eating it to cool down. It never worked, but he didn't really need an excuse to eat ice cream any time.

However, when he saw Mr. Gold unlocking the door to his little shop of wonders—Henry had wondered for a while if Mr. Gold wasn't really a dragon hoarding treasures, but no dragons turned up in the book who weren't slain by princes—Henry's plans went out the window and he broke into a run, reaching the man's side with a grin before he'd even pushed the door open.

"Hi!" he chirruped, even though he knew the difference between being unnoticed and being intentionally ignored very well at this point in his life. He took great pleasure in making himself known when it was the latter.

"Henry," Gold said with a nod and a smile Henry could tell even behind sunglasses didn't reach his eyes. "I do not imagine after my latest," he drew in a hiss of air, "escapades, your mother would approve of you spending time in my _shop_," the last was said with a bit of a snarl as Henry ducked out of the cold and into the warm interior of the shop.

"Do you mean my mom or Emma?" Henry asked turning to watch Gold enter the store slowly and flip the sign to open behind him.

"Pick one," he said, sounding more annoyed than Henry had heard him in all the time he'd spent lurking at the edges of Gold's life trying to place the man in the Fairy Tale world.

"No one will tell me what happened," Henry admitted with a crooked smile, he was well aware of how an innocent smile and the truth—or a stripped down version of it—could get him out of most any trouble. He knew Gold had done something bad from the way people whispered, and it seemed to have to do with hurting Moe French, but he really didn't know more than that.

Gold turned on the boy with a smile that was wicked and revealed his gold tooth.

"Had your mother had not stopped me," his voice was low and dangerous, but rather than being scared Henry found he was excited. For the all fear people seemed to hold in the presence of this man Henry had never been afraid. Were Gold a dragon he was not the kind who captured princesses and devoured knights, he was the kind who sat in his cave, old and wise, and dispensed wisdom to the worthy. Dangerous, yes, but he would never really hurt anyone. "I would have beaten Moe French to death," he finished and it sounded like a promise. "And I would have done it happily."

Rather than scaring the boy off, as Gold had hoped, Henry titled his head in that way that was all Emma—though Gold doubted anyone but himself had noticed—and narrowed his eyes. Of everyone in this town in this game of chess that came before the war, Henry seemed the best equipped. Gold was not certain if that was a good thing or a depressing thought. "What did he do?" he asked finally and Gold couldn't help a scoff and a shake of his head. The foolish child did not seem to know better than to go poking at beasts.

"What makes you think he did anything, perhaps I just wanted to make him suffer," Gold growled trying to stomp around the shop and behind the counter to complete his opening rituals. However, it was depressingly difficult to storm around when one could barely walk and it really just translated to a stiff gait and him nearly breaking his sunglasses as he removed them and slammed them onto the counter.

"No," Henry said, twisting up his mouth as though he were considering this and coming to a conclusion. "No, that's not your style. You don't do _anything_ without having a plan. I think that's part of why my mom hates you so much, because you think far ahead and she tends to just plan ahead a step or two," Henry explained lifting a stack of dusty books off the seat of a Queen Anne chair and sitting down hard enough to draw a puff of dust.

Gold wanted to snarl, to snap, to drive the child away, but he had the sinking suspicion that little he could do would drive the boy away. He was as stubborn as his mother. Both of his mothers. And he did normally like the child, enough to regret that he had been damned to a childhood of difficulty and strife living with Regina in a town where he was the only one who aged.

He had even gained some respect for the young man when they had played chess two summers ago. Gold had not played his best, true, but neither had he _let _the boy win. The victory had been all his own.

"So why did you?" Henry pressed after a moment of silence. Gold sighed, shifting his grip on his cane and closing his eyes for a moment, trying to fight back the emotions of that night, but it was still to fresh on his mind. Shame and guilt welled up first followed by a quick spark of fiery anger. Then, as it did, came the familiar agony, and more guilt as he remembered Belle. And then images of her tied down while a man hiding behind godliness flayed her until her back looked like-

Bile rose in his throat and he fought it down as his eyes snapped open and focused on Henry's face, still pudgy with baby fat.

"I imagine that anyone in town could tell you the reason my boy," Gold drawled with a confidence he didn't feel. He drew it around him like a cloak as though it could protect him from a look that was as much innocence as it was an unfair amount of understanding. A child's eyes should not be that old, nor should someone so innocent understand so very much. "I am a cruel man, not the type little boys should hang around pestering."  
Henry grinned. "That's not true," he said warmly, brightly. "You just bluster and act mean, like the king on a cliff side who throws rocks at everyone and then's sad 'cause he's lonely."

Gold's grip on his cane tightened until his hand ached more than his leg.

"You had a reason to hurt Mr. French," Henry assured him. And the strange thing was the boy was truly, utterly fearless. As he could sense desperation, so too could he sense cowardice and fear. And for all the stories and for all the _truth_ to the fact that he was a monster this boy was fearless in the face of it all.

What was he coming to if he could not scare young women and small children?

"He stole from me," Gold admitted finally, letting out a sigh that was more like a balloon deflating. His grip on his cane loosened. Henry continued to stare expectantly, his feet swinging back and forth and his toes only just reaching the floor.

"Something special?" Henry asked, his fingers brushing possessively along the edges of the book in his lap.

"Something irreplaceable," Gold whispered, letting his eyes fall shut. "I lost someone, a long time ago, and I cannot get her back. He stole the only piece of her I have," and oddly enough it felt good to admit. Almost like bravery.

"I'm sorry," Henry said, and the corner of Gold's mouth twitched up.

"So am I."

"Did you get it back?" Henry asked, wide-eyed and Gold nodded, shifting along the counter supporting himself as much on it as with his cane.

"Do you not have someplace to be?" Gold asked, his voice strained.

"Nope," Henry grinned. "You shouldn't have hurt him," Henry offered, hopping off the chair and walking closer to the counter so there was only that between them. "But I told you you had a reason for it."

And then with that same smile that was painfully like Bae's and yet something entirely his own Henry reached out and pushed one of the pawns on the little chessboard forward two spaces.

Gold could not contain the breathless laugh he let out and shook his head. It was surprising that the person least afraid of him in this whole town hadn't even hit puberty yet. His long fingers stretched out even as the little bell above his door tinkled softly to announce a customer and man and boy looked up at the same time. Panting from the strain that even a short walk had caused was none-other than Moe French.

"You're not what you think," Henry said softly, and then louder: "Thanks for the chat Mr. Gold, see you later," he called, sweeping up his book and bag and worming past the man filling the doorway, and Gold watched the top of his head bob past the window and away from the store.

"Any other day, I would think this visit of yours odd," Gold admitted with raise of one eyebrow and one corner of his mouth. It could not, charitably, have been called a smile. "Whatever could bring you here?"

* * *

"I am sorry Sheriff," he spoke, his voice warm at the edges and soft, "But I still don't quite understand why you are coming to me."

Dr. Erthal was a small, sturdy man with a shock of white hair on either side of his head and a bald patch in the middle. His blue eyes were behind small wire-rimmed glasses and he had a habit of fiddling with the stethoscope around his neck. His office was small and filled with books on medicine and on the corner of his desk was a large half of a geode that was the size of half a watermelon.

"I don't either," Emma admitted with a sigh as she slumped in the chair he had offered her—and then been forced to clear of more books and papers—"I am looking for someone and hitting dead-end after dead-end and the librarian, I guess, suggested that you might know?" her voice had an upward inflection at the end as though she was questioning herself why she had believed the strange woman, "that you were something of a local history buff?"

Dr. Erthal laughed, "It is a hobby of mine though I don't know why anyone would think I would know something specific about _one _person," he admitted.

Emma shrugged her shoulders. "Her name's Marie French," she explained, "And after what happened to Moe French..." she shook her head and missed the way the man's face went slack for a moment before he could control it. "I don't suppose you happen to know anything?" Emma pressed, looking back to him finally.

"I remember Moe French a little, I was still working the ER when they had that accident," Erthal admitted quietly, glancing down at his desk.

"Accident?" Emma asked sitting up.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, such a tragedy," the doctor murmured, swallowing hard. Emma realized then that he was the type who remembered every patient, maybe not the names or faces, but every injury, every hurt, and every time his best was not good enough. And she was not surprised he had gone into trauma care, and not surprised he had been forced to leave. "Moe French, his wife, and their young daughter were driving out of town on a vacation, and their car went off the Toll Road."

An image of the bridge high above the flat, unforgiving riverbed flashed through Emma's mind and she gasped.

"Yes, Mr. French was mostly unscathed, he had been driving, and his wife died, her neck snapped with the impact," Erthal recited, "He was charged with reckless driving, among other things and that is, actually, where his money problems began, his daughter was mostly unhurt, but while Mr. French was comatose for a week, she had been awake. For twelve hours she was trapped in the car.

"Oh god," Emma managed, trying to imagine what it would be like to be trapped like that, and on top of that with her mother dead, and for all the child had known her father dead as well.

"Needless to say," Erthal managed, taking off his glasses and rubbing at his eyes, "she had trouble readjusting. Mr. French said she didn't want to stay in town anymore and he strained his finances even more sending her off to boarding school in the middle of her last year of high school the last I heard."

Emma tilted her head, inspecting him for a moment but he was telling the truth, not that she was certain why he would lie at all. Still, there was something fishy about this Marie French business. She had begun this ridiculous quest as a way of understanding Mr. Gold's motivations and because she had been genuinely worried about the mysterious She-of-the-broken-tea-cup.

And now the more she looked into it the more she wondered what was happening, and, yes, admittedly a small voice in the back of her mind that sounded suspiciously like Henry reminded her that _no one_ _ever left Storybrooke_.

If Marie had left when she was only eighteen how had Mr. Gold come to know her? He didn't seem the type to meddle around with children and if he _had_ done something with a girl so young why was the beating she had walked in on not the other way around?

As she walked out of the hospital, without a lead and a with more questions than she'd entered with, she snorted. "Maybe he knew her in a world where they were all fairy tales and _he _remembers whatever happened to her _there_ and that's why he was pissed at Moe," she said aloud as she slammed her car door. "And that still doesn't make sense because if she had died there she probably never would have crossed over to this world and I _must_ be desperate if I am wasting time _actually _thinking about this," Emma chided herself. She gripped the steering wheel tighter and rested her forehead against it, taking a moment to breathe.

It did not help that this whole mystery was like something out of those old black and white detective movies.

"I am losing my mind," she said with a little thud of her forehead against the steering wheel. "Absolutely, without question, losing my mind."

Before she could wonder if you could still be mad if you were sane enough to _question_ your sanity her phone buzzed and she glanced down to see a text from the station, not unlike the one saying a break-in at Gold's house was in progress that had started this whole mess.

_911 Gold's Pawn Shop EMTs in Route_.

"Of _course_," she growled, throwing her car into gear and turning on the siren in the same moment. The pawn shop was a five minute drive from the hospital, she would get there in three. And even as she pulled onto the road one of the ambulances flew by with it's lights blaring.

* * *

"We don't serve your kind here," the innkeeper said, shaking his head and keeping his nose buried in the handkerchief he had pulled out when the man before him lumbered into his inn.

"What kind is that?" the stranger's voice was a low grumble like distant thunder on the horizon, but the innkeeper was too surprised by the question to care about the man behind the voice.

"What kind is that?" he parroted back, "filthy, loathsome _animals_!"

His two little girls, neither older than ten, hid in the doorway into the kitchen peering out around the heavy wood door-frame and watching. The stranger was a sight to see and had drawn much of the town staring—from a safe distance of course.

The man wore the skin of a bear, untreated and even with the head and arms still on it so much of it dragged behind him when he walked. His beard was unshaven and tangled and reached all the way to his belt, much in the way the hair on top of his head was long, twisting into his beard and at places completely indistinguishable one from the other. One could barely see his eyes for the way his hair covered much of his face and what little skin shone through was filthy.

Even his nails displayed this same lack of care and were long and mangled. It looked as though he didn't ever clip them but merely let them break when they would and in places aged blood smeared back on his hands from where they had torn loose too close to the skin.

It was clear from more than the state of his hair and clothes—or what passed for his clothes—that he did not bathe often, or ever. Even where they hid around the corner of the door, overwhelmed with the scent of cooking dinner, the little girls could smell the stranger and giggled even as they plugged their noses.

"I have money to pay," the stranger's voice held a note of something, desperation, or disappointment maybe. His hand reached into a pocket and pulled out a fistful of gold coins, followed by another, and then another, until a not unsubstantial pile lay on the counter between them.

"Keep your gold, you could not pay me enough for the damage keeping your custom would do to my reputation," the innkeeper said, waving off the pile of gold.

"I-," he opened his mouth, then closed it with a pained expression on what little of his features showed. He turned out his heel and began to slowly shamble out, his bearskin trailing behind him.

"Your gold," the innkeeper shouted, not even wanting to touch the pile before him.

"Keep it, as thanks for your hospitality," the man grumbled without turning.

The innkeeper did not touch it until the man was gone out of his Inn and the smell had faded away under the scent of his wife's mutton stew.

The bearskin stranger slunk away out of the town, walking down the middle of the dirt road and knowing that everyone was staring out their windows at him even though he couldn't see them. He hadn't thought of this when he'd made this vile deal. Well, to be honest h hadn't thought of much of anything, his mind had shut off after: "all the gold you need and at the end you'll have more than that."

The town fell away behind him as he dragged on, tired and hungry. It looked like he'd be staying in the woods again and probably going hungry since the string on his bow had broken and he'd been unable to get it replaced in town.

He heard voices deeper in the forest and panicked for a moment, frozen still in fear and torn between running away from more people who would only be cruel to him, and running toward the voices and trying to seek help.

And _like an animal_ he found he could only stand still and wonder what he was supposed to do in this situation.

Before he could make up his mind about what he was supposed to do the voices had come closer and he could see the flicker of lanterns through the trees and suddenly the figures of eight men—no, as they came closer he realized they were dwarves rather than men—caught sight of him and began to approach.

"Ho there!" one called, his voice friendly and warm.

The man in the bearskin hunched down. "Hey, woah, are you okay?" another of the group asked as they came close enough to really make out what little they could of his features.

"I'm...hungry," he managed finally, standing straight up. "I have...I have gold," he assured them, he knew he didn't need to worry about being robbed, that had been a part of the deal along with not cutting his hair or nails and not bathing.

"We would never turn down someone in need," one of the dwarves assured him even as another said:

"We are miners, if we wanted gold we could go get it ourselves."

And before he even had time to speak a third chimed in, "Come to our home, we'll feed you and you can get some sleep and, uh..."

"A _bath_," a fourth grumbled.

"Food and a bed would be nice, thank you," he managed, his voice still a little rough from disuse. He could grunt out a few words here and there, but it had been so long since he'd spoken for prolonged periods of time, and even before the deal he had never been a very talkative person. "Is there anything I can do to repay your kindness?"

"A _bath_," the grumpy one growled again and earning himself several glares from the others.

"You look as though you could use a little kindness stranger," the first one who had spoken, the one with glasses, said with a smile.

"I wish that I could at least bathe and make myself presentable for your home but-"

"Your story is a long one no doubt," the glasses wearing one smiled, "come, eat, you can tell us about it over food. The night is warm, we could," he smiled a little awkwardly and shifted to stand downwind of the man, "eat outside?"

"That would be good," he managed, trying to smile and feeling almost as though his facial muscles had forgotten how to, "friend," he pronounced the word awkwardly, too unused to saying it.

The dwarf smiled in the dim light of the lanterns. "Friend," he agreed.

He knew he was not allowed to, as part of the bargain, tell people about his situation, but neither did he want to lie to his new friends, the first he had made in years so he explained it was something he had to do, a right of passage as it were, and explained about how he had been a mercenary for so long it was difficult to find work outside of that. Being bound to their mines and their pick axes they understood this better than he did and were a great comfort.

It was, perhaps, their friendship that kept him in that place, and encouraged him to build himself a small cabin—away from theirs—where he could live out the remainder of his seven years. He was even sure to include a large cleared space in the garden where he built a table and nine chairs out of willow-wood for the nights when they all had dinner together.

* * *

Regina slammed down the phone and resisted the urge to scream. Things were not supposed to go this way. Henry came around the corner, blinking up at her with dark eyes that seemed so willing to smile at the world around him even though he told Archie he thought she was the Evil Queen.

He was just like Hansel and Gretel really, she offered him the world, this house to live in and toys and books and anything he liked but he still refused to love her. Her father had loved her blindly, done whatever she asked and never looked at her the way Henry sometimes did. That was love. But Hansel and Gretel had preferred their life of poverty and loneliness for the chance to be with their father and even though she had _given him up _and she hadn't wanted him he would still do anything to spend time with Emma, while Regina, the one who had soothed him through losing his tonsils and had tried to fix him when the curse didn't work the way it was supposed to, was evil. He should have just listened to her and believed what she told him, that was love.

She had taught him to read and strive and excel.

He was brilliant and so she got him tutors and she taught him math and French and gave him all the chances she never had and all she expected in return was that he love her, but he didn't. He wanted more from her and she couldn't begin to fathom _what_.

"What's wrong?" Henry asked, edging into the room and no doubt sensing her ire like a pall that hung over the room.

Regina paused and licked her lips, kneeling before Henry and placing her hands on his shoulders. "It's nothing," she said finally forcing on a smile and ruffling his hair a little.

"_Something_ happened," he pressed, tugging away from her hands. It seemed like all he was ever doing was pulling away from her and the harder she gripped onto him the more he struggled to get away.

"Do you remember Mr. French?" she asked, and Henry nodded, he hadn't told anyone about his conversation with Mr. Gold that day, or even that he'd been in the shop, but he couldn't not know a little. Not after it had gained him thirty minutes with Emma that his mom had just _given _him. "Well, today he," Regina furrowed her brow, unsure how she was supposed to tell him- "today he killed himself."

Henry paused, and blinked. No one ever died in Storybrooke except for Graham who had always been so nice to Henry, and he had _just_ seen Mr. French when he had come into Mr. Gold's shop. Regina pulled him into a hug. "Are you okay?" she asked and Henry wrapped his arms around her shoulders and buried his face in her neck. He hadn't really ever talked to Mr. French, except saying 'hi' once or twice on his way into or out of Granny's, but he had also never really had to deal with death and now two so close together.

He tugged away from her and nodded quickly, scrubbing his eyes on his sleeve for a moment. She furrowed her brow, as though confused, and then nodded. "Okay, well, go upstairs and finish your homework, dinner will be ready soon," she said pointing out her door toward the stairs. He frowned for a moment and then ran upstairs, kicking off his shoes as he went and closing his door.

His homework was long done, he'd done it instead of playing with the other kids, and now he glanced at the closed door behind him and edged to his desk where he'd hidden the walkie-talkie behind the loose back in one of the drawers. He clicked the little call button a few times and then waited, watching time tick by on the potato clock Mary Margaret had helped him make.

"What's up kid?" Emma asked and he found himself smiling a little.

"My mom told me about Mr. French," he said softly.

"Oh," her voice sighed out of the walkie.

"I was at Mr. Gold's today. I left just after Mr. French walked in," he admitted.

"Oh Henry," she sighed. "Did you...are..." she floundered for a moment and that alone was enough to make him smile a little brighter. "Oh are you scarred for life?"

"I could handle finding out I was born in jail," Henry chided with a little chuckle. "I—I'm _okay_," he said at last. "It's just weird."

"It doesn't get easier kid," Emma promised quietly, and oddly enough that made him feel better. "I take it Regina doesn't know you were hanging around Gold?" she asked after a moment of silence.

"No," he winced.

"I'll try to keep it that way, but if we need to-"

"If it helps, it's fine," he offered. There was another long silence where he didn't want to hang up, but he wasn't sure what to say.

"Do you know who he was supposed to be?" Emma's voice seemed softer somehow. Less certain.

"What?"

"In the...in your book. Do you know who Mr. French was?"

"Oh, no," his voice was sad and he couldn't see it but he swore he could almost hear Emma wince.

"I was thinking today," she started, "that maybe part of why Mr. Gold was so angry with him was because of something that happened in that world, and he might not even remember why but he remembers being angry."

Henry thought of their talk, just a few hours ago, and smiled even if his heart wasn't really in it. "Like how David and Mary Margaret still like each other," he pointed out, trying to sound a little chipper in hopes it would make Emma feel a little better. "Dinner's soon," he said.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Emma asked again.

"I feel a lot better," he promised and this time the grin did reach his eyes.

"Good," she sounded relieved even as he clicked the walkie-talkie off.


	4. Chapter 4

**Back for another chapter. I am surprised by how many people seem to follow this story! Every day I seem to get notifications of people who have added it to their alert lists or favorite lists.**

**I do, of course, love reviews, but even just getting dozens of notifications that you like it enough to want email updates when I post new chapters makes me get all giddy. And I need more giddiness in my life.  
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**So yay you all like it and hopefully you'll continue to like it! :3**

* * *

After her short talk with Henry, which really just left her feeling like she'd screwed the poor kid's life up..._again_...she pushed back into Gold's shop, past the pool of blood on the ground, staining into a thick, old carpet that was probably antique and now just _ruined_.

Gold was still huddled in the back room of the shop, the EMTs were probably not used to violent crimes—even suicides—in a small town like this, but they knew their job and she imagined that blood and suffering were the same to deal with whether it was a crime or an accident. And she had never seen someone shoot themselves, but she had seen fights, and she had been a part of violence and it was easy to find that little place in the back of her mind to shove everything until the moment was passed and she could deal with it properly.

Mr. Gold, however, for all his imperiousness and the way he seemed to inspire fear and rule the town, did not seem like he was as able to handle things like this. The EMTs had checked him over and declared him fine, and then one had pulled her over outside and asked if she was going to question the man. She had _thought_ it was another denizen of Storybrooke trying to warn her about the man and scared. But when she'd said yes the young man had asked her to keep an eye on the older man. "He's fine but he's shaken up and I think it wouldn't be a stretch to have him go into shock after the fact. Just...be careful."

It was the first time anyone in town—to Emma's knowledge—had expressed any kind of concern at all for the pawnbroker. And she'd smiled and said 'of course'.

Emma sat in front of the small television in the back of Mr. Gold's office and watched the scene play out on the security footage again. Beside her Gold gripped his cane and let out a heavy sigh that trembled just a little around the edges.

When she had first come busting into the shop, just ahead of the EMTs who were dragging along their gurney at the same time, she had seen Moe French laying splayed out in the middle of the crowded store, a spray of blood covering the normally dusty glass counters and blood with bits of skull and brain matter splattered against the wall of paintings.

Then there was Mr. Gold kneeling with his bad leg stretched out awkwardly beside him looking drawn and pale and with a smear of blood on one high cheekbone and his hands covered in blood. She didn't see his cane at first and only later learned he had dropped it and had to fairly drag himself over to Moe's side. Not that there was much to be done for someone with a hole the size of a golf ball in his skull. But he had turned the man onto his back at least.

She hated to admit it, but for a brief a moment she had thought Gold had finally gotten whatever revenge he was seeking for whatever had happened to Marie French. A part of the reason was because everything else in the last few days had seemed like something out of an old noir detective story, and she admitted another part was because Gold certainly did seem like the type would brutally murder someone and think he could escape the charge.

But then her mind had caught up with her, and she had seen how shaken the pawnbroker was and seen how the gun was still clutched desperately in Moe French's hand.

"S-sheriff Swan," Gold managed to choke from the floor. The EMTs had to gently pry his hands away from Moe's shirt, and one started trying to ask questions, but Gold was staring up at her with a look that nearly sent her reeling.

The look in his eyes was gone as fast as it had appeared as one of the EMTs crossed between them, flashing his penlight in one of Gold's eyes, but for a brief moment Gold was peering up at her with a look Emma knew well.

It was the same look Henry constantly wore.

That _entirely misplaced _look that somehow, _magically_, she could make everything better. The look that said she was the savior, the hero of the story, the one to break the curse. The look that seemed to say 'save me, I know _you _can.'

And as she stumbled back and let the EMTs do what they could to collect the body and help Gold, she realized that she had seen the look somewhere else recently. Graham had given her that look, at the mausoleum and in the station just before he had-

Emma had to use every last ounce of determination and willpower not to fall to the ground and scream _I can't even take care of myself! How can I save you when I can't save _me_? _

That was one of the things she would never tell Henry along with never trying to change his mind about the curse again. She would never tell him all the broken nights she'd spent praying, wishing, begging anyone who would listen whether it was God or someone else for a savior.

And all the horrible things she had done when no one came for her.

If Emma had her way Henry would never find out that she was a terrible person. She knew the curse and the fairy tales couldn't be real, because even if those scientists were right and there were an infinite number of other worlds and realities out there somewhere, she knew that in none of them was Emma Swan a hero or a savior or anything more than that idiot girl who always fell in with the wrong people. The stupid child who had gotten herself knocked up at eighteen and the one who always drove away the only good things in her life.

If she was lucky the one good thing she would ever do in her life was to give the world Henry, someone who wasn't a waste and who could do great things given the chance.

The most heroic thing she'd ever done in her life was saving Henry—and belatedly Archie—from that mine and anyone would have done that in her situation. She supposed that she had saved Regina too, from the fire, and she'd even said she was good and decent, but she was angry and Emma always said stupid things when she was angry.

Regina was right, the fire hadn't been that bad and the firemen had been right there, and then there was the mess with Gold and the rest of the election and-

She didn't even know CPR, she knew how to fight, how to hurt, she knew how to pick locks and steal cars—both things she had done—and she had never been beaten in any drinking game ever. But those things did not add up to a hero, they didn't even add up to a very nice person.

The EMTs finished their work quietly, two loaded Moe's body up onto the gurney they'd brought and slowly lifted him into the ambulance. One stayed behind, helping Mr. Gold to his feet and then to a chair, checking him over quietly and quickly and Emma wondered if it was that he was good at his job, or that this man was scared of Gold too.

He proclaimed Gold was well enough to stay in the shop if he chose, and that if the man wanted he could come by the hospital and get a proper check-up if his leg continued to bother him.

"My leg always bothers me, I am well used to it," Gold offered with only a shadow of his usual surety.

"If you're staying," Emma said, trying to gather up the frayed ends of her sanity and get back to work. Work was safe and good, she could hide behind her badge and be safe from the way people around here kept _looking _at her, "I would like a look at the security footage," she finished as Gold shifted his hand on his cane and pulled himself to his feet.

He lifted his chin and straightened his shoulders and managed to look regal even with blood on his hands and a smear drying and flaking on his face. "Of course Sheriff," he said, the bell on the door jingling as the last EMT beat a hasty retreat.

She followed him into the back room which—thankfully-did not smell of that sheep-crap junk he'd used to set fire to the Mayor's office. There was a small set-up with a single little television set. He apparently only had one camera in the shop and when she commented on this he raised an eyebrow and tried to look imperious. "I have never found a need for more Sheriff," he told her, "people seem," he searched for a word, "disinclined to rob from me."

"Except for French and Ashley," Emma pointed out under her breath.

"Twice in all the time I have had this shop," he said with a shake of his head and an attempt at a smile that was stronger than he had seemed when she came in, but still a far cry from the man he was normally.

"How long _have_ you been open?" the question spilled out of her mouth before she could stop it, or even before she could understand where it had come from and why it mattered. He looked at her for a moment and smiled a bland smile that was more just a curl of his lips.

"As long as I can remember."

And that little warning bell in the back of her mind that had kept her safe and made her such a good bail bonds-person jangled. She got that answer far too often in this town and what was worse was that no one else seemed to realize how strange it was.

_Graham talked to me that day Emma, he kept asking how we'd met, if I could remember how we'd met._

Before she could think of what to say he leaned forward and fiddled with the controls on the old-fashioned VCR before them and there was static on the TV for a moment and then the tape began to play and she saw Henry duck out of the store with something called over his shoulder.

Moe's body fell on the screen, and she saw Gold flinch back hard enough that he struck the wall behind him and knocked a shelf over, although she couldn't make out what had fallen. She watched him push himself off the wall and slam hard against the counter, dragging himself around without the use of his cane—she knew she never saw him without it but Emma wasn't certain it had ever occurred to her how much he appeared to need it. He fell hard beside Moe, turning the larger man's form over.

And in the real world she turned to him, her mouth open and a question on her tongue only to see Gold looking lost and distant and so very _pale_.

Emma found she actually was grateful—although not happy—to see him like this. Appearing _human_ and less the man who had been so ready to beat someone to death with his cane. She had long ago grown out of the delusion of thinking the best of people, but maybe spending every day with someone as sweet as Mary Margaret and someone as trusting as Henry was rubbing off on her, because she liked to think there was more to Gold than the monstrous beast that everyone in town painted him as.

Or maybe it was just because she had seen Marie French smiling in those photos and caught in mid-spin and mid-laugh. Whatever had motivated Gold to such brutality was spawned from that smile and having seen more than her fair share of twisted, toxic, abusive relationships Emma wanted to hope that that wasn't what it was. She saw that smile and liked to think it was enough to bring a good man out in a bad one.

A kind of _Beauty and the Beast_ effect, which was an analogy she would not be sharing with Henry.

And seeing him like this, shaken and disturbed and a little off-balance, made that man seem like it might be the reality.

Emma leaned forward and clicked the VCR's ancient buttons, rewinding the tape and preparing to watch again when the man beside her spoke: "I had no idea he was going to do that," Gold admitted quietly, and tried to smile only for it to come out more like a grimace of pain.

"For what it's worth, I'm not sure you couldn't have stopped him," Emma told him her shoulders tensing as on the video Moe's lips moved silently and then turned, drawing a gun from a pocket within his coat.

"I thought sheriffs were meant to talk people off bridges."

"Sometimes you see the desperate souls and know you can't help them," she said, staring intently at the video.

"I am usually very good at recognizing desperate souls when I see them," Gold told her and there was a flare of not quite anger, but _frustration_ in the pit of her stomach. She remembered how she had gotten this star, and how he had played her and it was hard to want him to be a better man. But at the same time she wanted an ally against Regina and the only one in town who wasn't scared of Regina, was Gold.

She was at war with herself trying to decide whether she wanted to trust him, or like him, or remind him that she'd kill him if he ever went near Henry with the sort of rage she'd seen that night in the cabin. And it always seemed like just when she was at the extreme of any one of those ends he'd do something to alter her entire perception of him again. Like telling her she could be sheriff and giving her the power to fight Regina.

Or helping her find those kids' father.

Or setting fire to the Mayor's office.

Or asking for forgiveness and settling for tolerance.

She didn't know how to feel about him at times, and at others she was reminded of Nate who had lived next to one of her worst foster homes when she was eleven and living in Tallahassee. He had been an angry, wretched old man who snarled and barked at everyone for everything. But she had gotten to know him from all the times she crawled into his yard to steal oranges from his tree.

He was angry and snarled, but that was who he was, he expected the best from the people he let into his life and would accept nothing less, and if you lived up to it he didn't compliment you or reward you. But being told you _hadn't _screwed up by Nate ended up being worth more to her than endless compliments from other people who didn't mean them.

That had been why she had gone back to and stayed in Tallahassee so long. She had found out Nate was dying and she had gone back, she had been twenty three. They never talked about it, she didn't help with his pills or drive him to the doctor's appointments. But she did rough chores around the house like putting up the hurricane shutters when the time came and mowing the lawn, and he gave her someone to come home to and made her get her GED and look into a job; it was the closest thing she had ever had to a real home and when he had died she'd never settled down again until coming here.

And when Gold smiled, on very rare occasions, she heard Nate in her head saying: "About time," when she had finally graduated high school, and how proud she had been because she knew, from him, that was high praise.

And that was, probably, why she got so angry with him when he did something like nearly killing Moe French. And was, probably, why she worried for him when she saw how shaken up he was by Moe's suicide.

"What does he say?" she asked pointing at the screen and pausing the tape, "Here?"

When he remained silent Emma turned to look and saw that Gold's eyes had slipped shut and he somehow managed to look calm and in agony all at once. With his eyes still closed he took a low, deep breath.

"He walked into my store, Henry left-" she had seen as much on the tape, "I had been having a bit of an odd day as it was."

It was Emma's turn to scoff, even by Storybrooke standards the last few days had been odd for everyone. It seemed like their whole world had gone pear-shaped the day before Valentine's Day.

"I asked why he was there," Gold continued, his voice soft and distant, and she noticed his hands against his cane were trembling faintly. If he were anyone else and she were someone better at comforting other people Emma might have reached out and covered his hand with her own.

But she was her, and withdrawn behind her walls to hide and he was the nasty old man who made impossible deals and relished in taking back what people couldn't afford. "He told me that he was sorry, he said that I had to forgive him, that he'd only done what he thought was best, that it was supposed to help," Gold's voice was strained and breathless as though he were fighting back emotion and failing. Emma was reminded of how he had clung to the cup, stroking his fingers over the chip.

Moe on the screen drew a gun from the pocket of his coat, and the Gold on the screen stepped back.

"I thought..." Gold managed a brittle laugh, "I thought he was going to shoot _me_," he offered, his eyes opening.

"He said that he'd only wanted to help. That he's just tried to do the best he could as a father. Apologized again," on the screen Moe pressed the gun to his temple and winced as he pulled the trigger.

"What was he apologizing for?" Emma asked, and Gold's eyes shifted slowly, sliding over the desk before them and to her face and she felt a shock of cold go all the way down her spine.

"I don't know," he said, and she could tell he had tried to make it a venomous barb, somewhere the intent was there, but it came out sad and she had never seen him appear so old in all the time she had been in Storybrooke.

"Do," her voice caught for only a moment, the same part of her that sometimes almost believed Henry's stories wondering if she shouldn't wait until later before the part of her that had been so alone for so long and had been hurt so often before pressed forward, "Was he apologizing for whatever happened to Marie?"

And there was a flicker of honest and genuine confusion in his eyes that added more questions to the growing pile in the back of Emma's mind.

"Marie French?" she pressed, "Moe's daughter?"

"What?" he asked, his brow furrowing and his eyes turning that particular kind of angry when people were scared and confused and tried to hide it.

"The "Her" you nearly beat him to death over?" Emma tried, getting annoyed an a little scared herself at the nonsensical reaction. "He only had one daughter."

Gold's face dropped, and all the fear and anger seemed to drain out of him in a quick second. He sagged in his chair and looked back to the screen. "The road to hell," he began, "as they say, is paved with good intentions. He was a monster."

"You could give the guy a little respect, _he's dead, _and clearly felt a _little_ guilt over the situation," she snarled, her voice hitching up an octave.

"A monster," Gold said, "always knows another monster."

Emma felt like she'd been kicked in the gut hard, and not for the first time she didn't know what she was supposed to do. For a brief moment the little girl in her who wished on birthday candles wished Graham was there to help. She hated herself the moment the thought entered her head and determined to go home and finish off all the liquor in Mary Margaret's house.

"I don't suppose you are finished? I have a lot of cleaning to do and it is already late," his voice had become hollow and nothing like the confident, self-assured voice or even the roar of fury that she was used to hearing from him.

She got a flash of Nate in a hospital bed, wasting away and his strong voice nothing more than a whisper, assuring her that she was tough and would be fine when she asked him not to leave her all alone.

"I guess I don't have to warn you not to leave town," she said, trying to make a joke and almost feeling the way it fell flat like a physical thing. She stood and pressed a hand to his shoulder, either to comfort him or hold him still she wasn't even certain herself. "It was a suicide, there was nothing you could have done."

"I was a coward," he said it as though he were passing judgment.

"I've known a lot of brave cowards in my life," she tossed over her shoulder back as she strode out of the shop. She suddenly needed to be outside, she felt like she was suffocating and she wasn't sure if it was the shop, or the sharp tang of blood in the air, or Gold, or even just her own memories.

The air was crisp and cold and smelled of snow. Emma kept moving but she had no destination in mind, merely a need to not be inside, to be breathing fresh air and feeling sun on her face and _moving_.

It was not like all the times in the past when she had packed everything up and moved on a whim, escaping some unseen monster or running toward something—she had never been sure—but she felt a need to be moving and so she went straight up Moncton and took a sharp right, heading toward the forest. She was still not the camping type, nor would she ever being the tracking type like Graham had been, but there was a little trail that curled through the low-lands of the forest and she took this, wandering until the red of the sky faded to a deep purple and night began to replace dusk.

* * *

The idea only came to her when she had worn down her anger and nearly exhausted herself. She had broken everything in her room that was fragile, even tearing her sheets apart with her hands and teeth. She had gone from screaming and snarling and swearing to sobbing in an instant, her sheet still clutched in her mouth and hands as she wondered what kind of animal she had become.

Hazel had always looked down on the spoiled princesses who threw fits and shouted at their servants and whined until they got their way. However, now, faced with this horror she had become something even worse.

And her mind had just seemed to click.

Those spoiled, nasty princesses...who demanded ridiculous things and refused to follow orders without something in return. With tears still rough on her face and her eyes still puffy from crying she tore open her door and looked down her nose at the guard posted there, doing her absolute best impression of the Princess of Glowerhaven who had visited last season.

"Your highness," he said with a short incline of his head, doing a very good job of pretending he hadn't heard her swearing fit to turn a fishmonger's ears blue a moment before.

"You will carry a message to my father," she told him, Hazel was many things—none of them which made a good princess apart from her beauty which was an accident of birth—including a marvelous mimic.

"Your highness, I cannot leave my-" he started and Hazel's perfect blonde eyebrows rose high against her forehead.

"You _dare_ to contradict a direct order from your princess?" she asked, and he made a choked noise and ducked his head. "I do not care _how_ you get it to him but you _will_ see to it that my father receives my message, is that understood?" she asked, her voice filling the stone hallway.

"Yes your highness," he said sounding almost meek.

"I have come to my senses as he suggested I would, and I will agree to marry whomever he chooses, but only upon my conditions, for I want to know for sure that I will be kept in the manner I am used to in this home I am being sold into."

"Yes your highness," he nodded, and she turned sharply on her heel, getting her skirts and her hair to swish in that way other girls always seemed to do so naturally and then slammed her door and dropped to the floor. Her energy was spent and really all she wanted to do was go hide in the stables under loose bales of sweet-smelling hay like she used to do when she was a little girl.

She knew her father had never liked her, and it had been rough when she was small and wanted nothing more than his attention. He had wanted a son and been saddled with not only a daughter, but a daughter who had killed his wife in birth. Over the years she had tried to be better, nearly strained herself to death learning to ride and hunt and do things that princes could do. When that didn't please she'd learned to do them _better _than princes could do, but that only seemed to drive her father further away from her.

She had tried to be the best daughter and princess then, doing needlepoint and dancing and playing instruments—easier with the callouses she already had from her archery. That didn't work, nothing she did worked really.

And just when she had finally come to grips with the fact that her father would never see her as anything more than a curse he had to bear, a king from a distant land had come. He had twelve sons and only one would inherit the kingdom so now he wanted to find princesses and kingdoms for the remainders.

Hazel's father had jumped on the chance since no prince within their realm wanted a girl who was a better fighter than him no matter _how_ much like a lady she could act at the drop of a hat. Never mind that the prince he had promised her to was arrogant and cruel, a vicious monster masquerading as a warrior.

She had seen him fight in the practice ring and nearly beat his opponent to death, and if the rumors about him could be believed that was not the worst thing he had done.

At first she had begged her father not to marry her to such a man, and pleaded, and cried, she had told him that she would do whatever he wanted and be whatever he wanted her to be, but not to send her to that demon.

In her room surrounded by the remains of what she had once owned she tugged tattered sheets around her shoulders and remembered the cold look in his eyes.

_"I will have a son at last, what more do I need than that?"_

"What more indeed?" she asked herself in the ruins of her room. She wasn't sure how much later it was, but soon a knock sounded at her door and she turned and opened it, still wrapped in the shreds of her sheets. Her father stood there in the hallway with two of his advisors and all of them made a good show of ignoring the wild-thing their princess appeared to be.

"What will it take to get you to do as I say for once in your life?" her father asked, sounding more bored than anything else.

She swallowed down the agony as much as possible and tugged her sheets around her. "I want proof that this _man_ you've chosen for me," she inspected her nails, "is capable of supporting me in the manner I have become used to living with you. Unlike you I want to be certain that he will not run this kingdom into the ground."

"And how do you expect-" he started and the child in her who still desperately craved his approval shrank back, but the Princess of Glowerhaven that she was pretending to be never backed down to anyone.

"I _expect_," she snarled over him, "gifts to prove my suitor's wealth and determination to marry me," she said tilting her chin up.

"Yes?" her father asked, narrowing his eyes.

"I want three dresses, the finest of any princess's in the land," she said, this had been the hardest part. She had thought maybe her father wanted a humble daughter, so she'd always tried hard to never ask for anything, and to always appreciate things for their intent not their monetary worth. But for this the demands had to be impossible. "I want one to be the color of the sun and to shine as brightly. I want one to be the color of moonlight, and the third I want to be made of pearls and stardust."

"Fine," her father said quickly, brushing her off with a wave of one hand.

"AND!" she snapped, flinging her hand down to her side and taking a step forward because she longed to stumble back away from him. "And I want a fur coat, the finest in all the land, I want every animal in the kingdom tocontribute fur to it, but not one life can be given to create it," she told him, and she watched the two advisors whispering furiously in the background, far more concerned with her demands than her father appeared to be. "I will not even begin to consider marrying your precious son-in-law until I have these things before me, and then we can begin to discuss my wedding gown."

Her father nodded curtly and started off down the hallway, his advisors falling into step behind him and Hazel retreating into her room.

Even if he was able to somehow create dresses to her high standards—which should be impossible—there was no way he would be able to make a fur coat without killing an animal, let alone one from all the creatures in the entire kingdom.

But she didn't trust that he wouldn't eventually call it a lost cause and try to make her marry the bastard anyway. This was just a means of buying herself enough time to come up with a plan. Hazel didn't care about marrying anyway. Marriage was about as high on her list of things to do as clawing out her own eyes.

Boys, in her limited experience were foolish, bratty things. They either couldn't handle or accept that she was a capable fighter and hunter, or they appreciated that but could not handle that she did enjoy needlepoint and playing the harpsichord. She _liked_ attending balls as much as she liked trailing a prize buck through the woods before launching an arrow and taking it down. She could clean the meat and cook it too if the situation called for it.

Apparently it was too much to ask for a man who would hunt with her as an equal, and appreciate her more feminine pursuits as well and so she would have none of them. Least of all the sort of monster who beat his servants to death and had an appetite for village girls who were left broken and battered.

The only man she wanted anything to do with was her father and he had made it clear that he didn't want the shame of a daughter on his head.

She should just run away. Just pick up and leave this wretched place, but...but there was a part of her that just wanted her father to notice her and love her like she loved him.

A part of her refused to believe that he would actually make her go through with this. She hoped that in the time it took him to pull her demands together he would see the life he was dooming her to and let her free from the obligation. He was, after all, her father. There was no way a father could let his daughter go to someone like that.

* * *

Her window was fogged over and she was fairly certain that even if she could see out of it it, it faced a brick wall. All the window managed to do was alert her to whether it was day or night and based only on the color the glass seemed to be.

The first few weeks after her head had cleared she had dreamed of escape. She had thought her father would come for her, or she would free herself. Never, in all her time, had she thought that the dear sweet doctor who had freed her from the medicine at least would save her. He had stuck his neck out to get her on the placebos and tell her, to allow her mind to be free. He let her read for an hour a week which gave her something to look forward to, and he had let her know that she'd been here only for a year.

He had helped her so much and she would never ask him to risk the only thing _he _loved, his position in the hospital, to save her when he'd already given her her own _life_ to enjoy.

Before his help she had been little more than the shambling _zombies_ the other patients became on their medicine, by turns aggressive and psychotic, and then suddenly unable to even keep their own heads up.

But her door swung open and outside the window was dark and she _knew_ even then that something was different. Doctor Erthal stood in the doorway, holding a bundle in his arms and looking furtive.

"Doctor?" she asked, shifting out of her bed and placing bare feet on the ground.

"Quick, quick Marie, put these on," he pushed the bundle at her and she realized it was clothing.

"Doctor I don't-"

"Marie," he stumbled forward, pressing the door shut behind him and somehow Marie _knew _that it wasn't locked. "Marie, there is no time to explain, trust me now and I'll explain everything when I can," he promised.

And he had done so much for her and Marie had spent so much time waiting for something more to happen she took the chance. The Doctor turned to give her some privacy and she almost cried tears of joy to see that there was underwear, something she had been disallowed. They were only allowed their hospital blues in the Aggressive Population ward. There were jeans she fumbled on quickly, almost unfamiliar with zippers and buttons after a year or more without and a heavy winter coat that was much too big on her but a relief to pull on over her thin hospital top. It felt so strange to feel the _weight_ of real clothes again and even though she knew they had to rush and gathered as much as he was breaking her out—though she couldn't begin to fathom _why—_she took a moment to relish the sensation.

There were no socks but the boots he gave her were large enough that it didn't matter and before she even had time to bend and tie them—not that she was sure her fingers would remember how—he had grabbed her wrist and was dragging her out into the empty hallway.

She was scared and excited, thrilled and almost unwilling to believe that any of this could be possible as she was dragged through the hallways and towards a service elevator, by the time they stepped outside into cold, winter air she was convinced this had to be a dream and someone had realized she was on the placebo and switched her to a hallucinogen. She remembered just before the accident that had put her here she had been with friends and watched the movie _Brazil _where the last ten minutes or so was simply an extended dream-sequence you didn't realize was a dream until later.

Surely that was all this was, and then as the doctor bundled her into his car and sped out of the parking lot so fast the tires screeched she saw the moon.

It had been over a year since she had last seen the moon, and she knew no matter what drugs anyone had given her there was no way she could imagine something so beautiful as the moon surrounded by a riotous swirl of stars.

She let out a trembling gasp of air and turned to the doctor with tears in her eyes. He glanced at her only briefly keeping his eyes on the road even when she began to laugh, a giddy, nearly hysterical sound but endlessly, deliriously happy.

"I cannot even begin to know how I could possibly thank you," she told him, pulling the itchy boiled wool of the coat tighter around her and pulling open the cover on the sunroof so she could see the stars better.

"Oh Marie," the doctor sighed, shifting his grip on the steering wheel. "There...so much has...so much as happened...please don't...don't thank me until you _understand_," he begged, and his voice was so sad that something cold wrenched at her heart even as she continued to smile until her cheeks hurt over the view of the stars through the treetops.


	5. Chapter 5

**Welcome to another chapter! Everyone has been so so so welcoming and friendly, I can't thank you guys enough for that and hope that I continue to live up to the standards I have-apparently-set for myself.  
**

* * *

He'd always liked the little group of friends, he wasn't sure why entirely, but neither did he know why they were friends with each other so different were they. Leroy was the town drunk and either despised or mocked, Doctor Erthal was a great man—no matter what he claimed he had lost that night. Bruno would always respect the doctor. He was a hunter and had no qualms about killing, and more than once had found a deer or rabbit that had been injured and performed a mercy killing. But he could respect someone who would be able to take something broken and bent and make it better. That, to him, was a kind of power he could never have. Sure he could drag an eight point buck home himself without a whole lot of trouble, and he chopped his own wood and had built the small, lopsided cabin he lived in, but he'd trade all that for the sort of power that the doctor had in his hands.

He also knew that as time went on just like animals could heal from what was wrong with them, the doctor would heal too and someday he'd be that man again. So Bruno didn't mark him off as a loss the way the doctor did about himself.

He owed the man his life, not in the sense that he'd been saved by that scalpel, but when he had been losing himself to this wild world, it had been the doctor's friendship that had brought him back and reminded him that there were things of worth in the human world he had so long counted himself separate.

So though he'd never been under the doctor's knife, he meant it when he said that Erthal had saved his life, and that he owed the man for that.

He just...

Well to be honest he had never expected that repayment to come in the form of a young woman in mis-matched over-sized clothes, tromping about loudly through the underbrush in boots that didn't fit. What really unnerved him was the way she was crying. She was clearly upset, and distraught over something, and tears were running down her face and she was shaking and making little hiccuping noises as she fought back her sobs, but she was pressing on through it all.

The only girls he had known just shut down when they cried. They'd sit and sob and waste all your time trying to make them feel better. She just, pressed forward, a few stumbling steps behind the doctor and with a determined set to her chin even as it trembled.

"Doctor," he said, with a nod of his head even as his eyes darted back to the girl.

"Bruno," Erthal started, then swallowed, licked his lips and stepped into the man's line of sight. "Bruno you said you _owed _me one, once," the doctor reminded him and Bruno nodded, setting down the ax he had been chopping wood with and leaning on the handle. "I am calling in that debt," he finished.

"Maybe we should go inside and talk this out, your little waif there is freezing to death," he said, with a bob of his chin at the girl, who stood straighter for the attention and lifted _her _chin in response. He was suddenly under the impression that he'd misjudged her, like the summer he'd heard a creak in the woods, thought it was a deer, and been surprised—nearly dead surprised—to find it was a cougar, and nearly halfway up his tree to boot.

"I am neither a waif nor freezing to death," she fairly growled, made raspier by all the crying she had done, and he was reminded again of that cougar.

"Let's still go inside, this may be a long story anyway," the doctor huffed, pushing past Bruno and into the familiar interior of the cabin.

Bruno lived with only the barest of necessities, or things he could craft himself out of whatever he found in the woods. His bed was a thick, heavy thing made of stumps and carved pieces of trees and he did have a table and chair, with a few scattered stumps he had cut and hauled in so when the doctor or others came on their rare visits he had a place for them.

His kitchen was hardly that. He had an old cast-iron potbellied stove that he'd had as long as he could remember and that was it. Most of his food he cooked over an open flame anyway, and that he did in the fire-pit out back.

He'd been considering for a while going into down and getting a little generator and a refrigerator to go along with it so he could keep meat longer than an evening. After all, maybe living hand-to-mouth was a little less civilized than even he wanted. But for now he just had an ancient, over-sized cooler that was permanently stained on the inside and which he usually forgot to get ice in order to fill it and make it be of any use beyond storage.

Well, and sometimes he used the top of it to stretch rabbit pelts out on, but that he could just as easily do on the floor—or as the doc always suggested, _outside_.

That was all, except for his one conceit, an old record player he'd purchased on one of his monthly trips into town. Beside it there was a small stack of records, mostly Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzie Gillespie.

The doctor was used to how he lived but the girl looked around the small room in surprise.

"What did you expect? A large estate house?" he asked, with a curl of one lip, that look was precisely why he mostly avoided going into town and all the people that came with it. They were all so used to their own way of life they looked at anyone who did anything differently like some kind of twisted beast.

"No, no," she said, soothingly with a smile, and he wondered how he'd not noticed that her crying had faded to merely sniffles. "It's...charming," she offered. "I've spent a lot of time, recently, in worse conditions than this, it's..._nice_," she said finally and the smile that made her blue eyes—like the Blue Cohosh that sometimes grew in little patches in the forest—stand out even red-rimmed as they were. In that moment she seemed so innocent and kind he lost the image of her as a cougar and she seemed more like a little rabbit.

"That's just it," Erthal said, slumping onto one of the makeshift stools. "Bruno, I...I've done something _terrible_."

Bruno took the one chair and ignored the girl, reaching across to take one of his friend's hands. "I find that hard to believe," he said with a smile he hoped was more than the grimaces he usually managed.

"Come here little one," he motioned to Marie, "this involves you too. One night, a little over five years ago now, there was a car crash out on the Toll Bridge, Marie and her father and mother were involved, and I worked on her father, Marie was mostly unharmed."

She remembered this story, from when she'd slowly come out of that fuzzy grey stupor only a year and a half ago. So instead she swallowed hard and only half-listened, while her mind ran over all that had happened to her in the, _maybe_, two hours since she'd been broken out of the hospital.

"Mayor Mills came to me, I was still, I had only just stabilized Moe French, her father, she...she told me the girl was _sick_ that she was mad, and that we had to protect her,"

She remembered her father, remembered the times she'd sat up with him and made flower arrangements, and when he would take her to the bookstore on Sundays when she was a child and let her pick one book to bring home, like finding a new friend.

And how when she'd turned sixteen and they'd been so poor because he was only just starting his own flower shop instead of working at the local garden center. She had been so excited about going to the Junior Prom, not because she was very attracted to Jasper, she wasn't really, but she did so love to dance. She had been ready to make her own dress since they couldn't really afford one.

But then she'd come home from school and hanging on the coat-rack like it was nothing at all was the most beautiful yellow dress. The one she'd seen in the window of the dress shop only a week ago.

Moe had been ready to pretend it was nothing but she'd thrown herself in his arms knowing she could never thank him enough for what he'd done for her.

And sure he'd let her stay in the hospital but he'd thought it was for the best she supposed, and that was worth something. And even if it weren't...Even if it had been cruel and intentional—something she doubted with everything that she was—

To think he was dead, it left a cold-spot in her. She hadn't even cried all that much, not as much as she had cried when her mother died, but she couldn't even believe it, not really. He had killed himself in front of the loan shark he owed a lot of money to, and so everyone was saying—Doctor Erthal had explained—that it was because of that, he'd seen no other way out and wanted Gold to know what he'd driven French to do. The Shark was cruel anyway, Erthal explained, and had actually beaten her father into the hospital only a few days before. _He nearly killed him then..._

But that didn't sit right with her any more than thinking her father had been doing anything more than trying to protect her to the best of his ability.

"I...I knew she wasn't insane, she'd suffered no break. They were just using it as an excuse to keep her sedated. For whatever reason Mayor Mills wanted this girl locked away from the world. Bruno...Bruno I _let _them. I let them and I paid for my sins," he looked down at his hands like they had betrayed him. "And I was too much of a coward to do anything for her, I just let Mayor Mills keep her heavily sedated and locked with the others in the Aggressive Population ward, like she was dangerous. I was too worried about losing my _job_ to help a girl with her _life_."

Her father battled with depression at times, ever since she was a child he'd taken life's troubles particularly hard and seemed to brush off the things which were a cause for joy. When she'd woken up from that foggy place she'd been most worried about him, more than she had been about her own situation certainly.

"The only thing I ever tried to do for her was get her taken off the drugs, which was hardly a _kindness_, it just meant she suffered every day _knowing_ that she was _trapped_."

"It _was _a kindness," Marie offered with a smile, reaching out to press her hand to Erthal's shoulder. "You gave me what little chance at a life you could, and let me read and taught me to play chess," she told him.

"I let you know how you were suffering, but I am well aware of my sins," he told her patting her hand on his shoulder.

"So what changed?" Bruno asked, propping his elbows on the table.

"Yesterday," Erthal started, squeezing Marie's hand, "Yesterday her father," he choked.

"My father took his life yesterday," Marie supplied, surprised when her voice cracked and she felt a tear track down her face.

"Other than the hospital staff, who are all under the Mayor's thumb as much as I am," he frowned, "was, perhaps after this evening, Mr. French was the last person who knew about Marie French still being in town rather than away at college. I—I couldn't...I don't know what our mayor is playing at or why she locked the poor girl up in the first place, and I could not wait around to see what she was going to do with her now that there were no witnesses not on her payroll."

"You must have thought she was going to do something though," Bruno pointed out, watching the girl more than the doctor.

"I cannot fathom why anyone would lock a sane person up and put them on _heavy _anti-psychotics that have been known to destroy the people who actually need them," the doctor said shaking his head. "She wanted this girl away from the world for whatever reason. I will not give her the chance to do something _worse_ than what she was forced to suffer."

"Makes sense I guess," Bruno shrugged, leaning back in his chair. "So your favor is?"

"I want to hide her here," Erthal said.

"Doc, I don't have the nicest life you know, you think blue-eyes wants to live out in the woods with me?"

"Doctor Erthal risked his career and livelihood to give me the gift of life away from that cell," Marie said, smiling that strangely serene smile she could get. And then her nose crinkled just a little and she looked less like a serene young woman and more like a grinning child. "Had I more options I wouldn't have picked it, but I prefer it to the hospital, and it is just until we know more of what the Mayor is planning," she grinned more fully now, "It might be nice to have someone around here to clean or cook for you."

It was Bruno's turn to laugh now, a great booming belly-laugh that filled the small cabin. "Look Blue-eyes, really look around this room," he commanded and she didn't turn away from his eyes. "I don't clean, unless it's a dead animal and I only cook what I kill for myself," he turned to the doctor, "And I don't even know that I can support her, I live hand-to-mouth most of the time," he explained, rolling his eyes.

"Then teach me to hunt, or at least to fish and clean your kills, I'll _make _myself useful as long as you have to be stuck with me," she said, her voice firm and sure, but not cruel or commanding. Which was good. If she had demanded a place in his home like it was her right, he would have kicked her out then, his debt to Erthal be-damned.

"And where are you going to sleep?"

"On the floor, Mr. Giovanni," she said, smiling like she was excited to meet this challenge. "I've spent the last year in a mental institution, with all due respect, sleeping on the floor of your cabin is going to be no great ordeal."

Bruno laughed again.

"You're brave," he said to her, "I like that. Fine, Doc, I'll take her in and keep her here safe from that city you come from," the doctor stood, already starting thank yous, "but I'm still gonna owe you that debt," he assured the man and then the two hugged like old friends and even for as cold as she still felt inside and the tears that still stung at her eyes, Marie smiled to see the sight.

Their family had always been on the poorer side, and then her mother's death and her...troubles. But she had always refused to be sad over it. She wanted happiness more than anything else in life and so she'd smile in the face of tribulations. She knew her mother and her father would want nothing less than for her to be happy, even if it had to be without them. She didn't understand why the mayor had cared whether or not she were free or not, but whatever the reason, she wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of seeing Marie broken.

And on top of that all: Doctor Erthal. The warm, gentle, kind man who had risked his career over the months to help her stay sane in her less-than-ideal conditions, and he had risked everything to keep her off the medication that would only do her harm.

She shifted and walked to the window, pressing her hand against the glass and looking out at the trees and through their branches a barest brush of stars. And he had risked not just his career but _imprisonment_ to get her to this place, standing in a cabin _outside_ and free.

True she couldn't exactly pick up her life where it had left off, and she couldn't even really go running around _town_. And true that it came on the heels of losing her father too, but she was free and for as horrible as parts of her life happened to be that was more than enough to make her happy. She was _free_. She could read as long as she wanted, or play chess on a real chessboard, and had all the space she could want to _dance_.

* * *

Emma sat in the little booth by the window of Granny's. When it was free she liked it best, even though she kept her back to the window and never saw the view. What she liked about the little corner was that she could see everyone who entered the diner but at first glance they couldn't see her.

There was something safe about that to Emma, she admitted she liked being off the radar of other people.

So, when Regina burst into the diner in one of her fouler moods she didn't notice Emma at first and it gave Emma a chance to prepare herself for whatever wrath the woman was about to inflict on her. It was moments like these that Emma thought back on sawing half the branches of Regina's perfect apple tree off and smiled. Regina might make things hard on Emma, but that was a stunt that was hard to top.

"Sheriff," Regina's clipped voice was like a cold bucket of water as she slammed one perfectly manicured hand down onto the back of the chair opposite Emma and leaned over the table.

"Madame Mayor," Emma smiled, taking a bite of her scone in a manner that could only ever be called defiant. "What can I do for you today?" she asked, plastering on a fake smile and picturing the look Regina had worn when she saw her decimated apple tree.

"Your _job_ for one," the mayor fairly growled, narrowing her eyes and leaning even farther forward over the table. Emma raised an eyebrow and waited since that usually proceeded a request by the mayor. "Last night a patient escaped from the Aggressive Population ward of the hospital. Some crazy, dangerous, psychopath is loose in the city."

"What?" Emma asked, shaking her head as though to clear it and not entirely following. It seemed like that should less be something that the mayor was asking her to take care of and more like something that should have been announced on the news and possibly set off sirens or warning bells somewhere in town. "Shouldn't the _mayor _be warning people?"

Regina pursed her lips and pitched back, her dark red nails still sinking into the brighter red of the chair she was gripping for balance. "I am _trying_ to avoid a panic in the town," she hissed. "I thought since our sheriff is so bored for lack of something to do she's bothering people about some cold case or another she could put her boredom to good use," she sneered, "And I don't want people panicking and doing something foolish, or worse _scaring_ the patient should they find her. She's crazy, and probably ill-equipped to deal with February in Maine and _you're _the one who keeps saying that finding people is your specialty," Regina had that unique ability to list your skills and know it was true and _still_ manage to sound as though she were mocking you.

"How did she even escape in the first place?" Emma asked standing up and pulling on her coat.

"I don't _know_ that idiot security guard was asleep at his post again, and believe _me_ it will be the last time he does that."

Emma had to use every ounce of self-restraint not to roll her eyes but a soft scoff did escape into a puff of clouded air as they stepped out of the diner and into the cool morning.

"Alright, give me a name and description, and does she have any family that she might try to get home to?"

"No, she's a _Jane Doe_, we found her wondering around about five years ago, completely out of her mind and _entirely _unaware what was going on around her. When Graham tried to take her into the hospital she attacked him and since then has been under 24-hour supervision in the hospital," Regina explained, and the name Graham seemed to land hard between them like a brick, or a line drawn in the sand. "She's five foot two and has brown hair, and other than that I don't know what to tell you other than find her before she does something violent!" Emma nodded, trying to reign in her frustration at the mayor long enough to do this at least.

She didn't like Regina but could understand the desire for a small amount of discretion. If they got the town panicked they might startle the girl if she was really so unstable as that. However: "If I don't find her by," Emma glanced to the clock tower and saw it was just after eight, "noon, I am going to put out an alert, I can understand the desire to not scare anyone, but we have to make sure she doesn't get out of town either," Emma pointed out.

Regina looked less-than-pleased about that choice, and leaned closer to Emma, "Just. Find. Her," she snarled, before storming off in the other direction. Emma filed that away with the other questions and mysteries she had found in the last few days and resolved to address it once the dangerous escapee was found.

She rushed to the hospital first to talk to Leroy—if he was still there—and whoever was on security now. It seemed like the best place to start. She didn't think of visiting Doctor Erthal on purpose, but rather happened to run into him as she was taking a sharp corner in the hallway.

* * *

"I know who you are," Belle at last spoke up from where she sat opposite the queen in the dark carriage.

"I was surprised as well," the queen smiled showing snow-white teeth against her red lips. "I had no idea the little country-mouse I met beside the road was the daughter of a Baron. How _ever_ did things turn out with your dear lover and employer?"

"You _know_ how they turned out," Belle's voice was as hard as the the Queen's voice was warm and innocent.

"Oooh," the Queen drawled, still speaking conversationally and companionably, just as she had on the side of the road. "You mean _Rumpelstiltskin _was your dear, cursed love?" she had the gall to look shocked by the news.

Belle simply glared.

"Oh _child_," the Queen said, frowning. "Had I but _known_ I never would have-"

"You knew _exactly_ who he was and who I was!" Belle accused, "When I said that any curse could be broken he knew_ exactly_ who I had met even though I didn't. You knew all of that was going to happen."

The queen's face didn't really _change_ but something in her mask did seem to fall away and where she had been friendly and obliging a moment before she was suddenly sharper, colder, and Belle imagined this was the real woman.

"Hmm," she made a sound low in her throat and for the first time really looked at the girl sitting across from her in yards of green silk. Her father had insisted she look nicer than the simple blue dress she had been wearing if she was to go off with the _Queen _of the realm. "I did not know he was going to throw you out, no. I really thought he might love you, but then he's always been a bit foolish and fanciful."

"You _knew_ that he didn't _want _his curse to be broken. And even if you didn't, the point was to take away his power so you'd be stronger."

"Oh," the Queen sounded surprised, her eyebrows raising on her forehead. "You're clever, I hadn't expected that. He seemed more the type for some simple country girl, foolish enough to believe in fairy stories about love conquering all."

Belle could be angry, and even furious, and she was smart enough to have followed what was being shouted at her and put two and two together especially in light of her current situation. Locked in a small carriage with the woman that Rumpelstiltskin hated so much and who had tried to use Belle to take away his power.

However, she was a simple girl and she had never been one for subtlety. She wore her emotions on her sleeve and never saw a reason to _not_ to. So when she flinched at the cruelty of the barb she was forced to watch the Queen smile to see her arrow had struck home, Belle finally understood there may be some place, however small, for subtlety.

"Yes, if you are really curious, I _had_ hoped to take out a powerful opponent true, but I meant him no harm! I could just as easily have tried to kill him," she reminded Belle, gesturing with one shoulder and still acting like they were just two old friends having a quiet discussion on the long road home. "Which would have been better because then I could have absorbed the power of his curse for my own. Instead I sought to bring him a little happiness and _break_ the curse," she shrugged delicately, "how was I to know he'd react so poorly?"

"You're a liar," Belle hissed. "He said he was more powerful than you. You _did_! You sent me in there to betray him!"

"Betray him?" the Queen laughed, "You were _clearly_ in love with him and if he _let you go_ he clearly loved you in return. It wouldn't have threatened his power if it weren't _true love_," she sneered the word like it was a vile insult, "so I do not see how it could be a betrayal."

Belle took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked instead of shouting like she wanted to do. A part of her wanted to scream, wanted to throw herself at the dark woman across from her. This woman had been the reason that things had gone so wrong. This woman had used Belle as an innocent pawn in her game with Rumpelstiltskin and broken Belle's heart in the process and...and what was worst of all, and what kept Belle from doing any of the violent things she was imagining, was that a part of her felt guilt.

If she had just stopped for a moment and _thought_ after meeting the woman on the road, if she had considered for a moment that Rumpelstiltskin—of all people—had turned the curse to something he used as much as it used him...maybe this could have ended happily ever after. A part of her knew she had betrayed him. It had been innocently done, and it had been with good intentions, but she had betrayed him. She'd fallen in love with the man as he was, and the first thought in her mind was to save him from an evil that did sometimes scare her but which _had_ been a part of the man she fell for.

"I thought your father told you my dear, you're going to be my new lady-in-waiting."

Belle took another deep breath. "What are you really going to do with me?" She was going to die. She knew it.

"Well I'm not going to carve your pretty little heart out of your chest if that's what you're concerned about," the Queen said offhandedly and Belle's heart dropped into her toes. Something about the way she said it made it sound less like one of the flippant quips she was used to from Rumpelstiltskin and more like that was a genuine possibility she had considered. "You're worthless to me without that _pure heart_ of yours."

Belle gripped her hands into tight fists in her lap, waiting.

"You are still the key to my dear friend's downfall," the Queen informed her gently, looking at her nails and inspecting them. "Right now he thinks his power is more important to him than you, so he won't let you kiss him and break the spell," she sighed heavily as though this were the sort of inconvenience of court ladies, like having to trek through mud in a new dress simply to go riding. "I can still use you to my advantage and break that twisted lump in his chest he calls a heart."

"What?" Belle asked, feeling a cold lump of fear in her stomach.

"I'll let him think that you've died because he shut you out, it's not such a stretch, you lived with that scourge of the land for a year, people would probably say no less than that in their whispers of gossip," she spoke with such an offhanded casualness that it made Belle even more nervous and she had to fight the urge to fidget. A part of her genuinely considered leaping from the carriage and trying to make a run for it through the woods, but since the Queen could apparently see through mirrors and was nearly—if not quite—a match for Rumpelstiltskin Belle was willing to believe that she had enough magic to make Belle stay in the carriage. "It should make him sloppy if it doesn't destroy him out-right and I won't have to worry for a while. I can trade away a few of those apples I have from the Blind Witch for a few extra curses..." she twisted her lips up and Belle got the impression the Queen was speaking more to herself than to Belle.

"It is a shame I traded away _that _curse if only to have the threat of it hanging over his head, but it got me what I wanted," she shrugged in that delicate way she had and finally glanced up at Belle, "If I cannot destroy him out-right I can, at the very least, do a great deal to weaken him."

"So you're going to kill me?"

Belle had expected as much, but it was still terrifying to have her fears concerned.

"Oh-ho no!" the Queen laughed, a bright, bubbling thing, "No, don't be stupid. You're no use to me dead. He keeps his little trinkets aside for deals, and so I'll do the same. I'll keep you locked away in some dark hole where you'll never see the light of day again, but alive. And if I ever need a bargaining chip against him, well, I can take you out and threaten your life."

"He doesn't want me though, he cast me out," and if a little bit of bitterness settled into Belle's voice she couldn't really be blamed, the harsh reality of his proclamation was still fresh enough in her mind and every time she closed her eyes she saw him standing before her and wished she'd never called him a coward.

He was, it was the truth, but she wished—especially now—that that had not been the last thing she'd said to him. She could have called him a coward and then _just in the door_ said she loved him, said _goodbye _even. Anything. They were the very last words she'd ever _get_ to speak to him and they'd been spoken in anger.

And now she'd never get to apologize for trying to save him when he'd never asked to be saved. She had been trying to do the right thing, and her heart had been in the right place, but she could see how it was not the sort of thing she should have gone blundering into thinking that she knew best.

"Foolish girl," the Queen chided, "he cast you out _because _he loves you, you're dangerous to him. All he has is that dark curse of his," she sneered again, "but it gives him more power than anyone else in the land, except for the fairies, perhaps. You are the key to his undoing, why would he not try to make you hate him? But I can tell by the look in your eyes you love him as much as ever," the Queen's grin had a malicious, victorious bend to the corners.

Belle swallowed. It was true. As much as she wanted to hate him, whether because of how he had shouted, or hurt her, or cast her out, or even just to save him now in the manner he would have appreciated being saved, she could not. It _was _true love, and that did not fade easily in the course of a fortnight.

Though she knew now that the romances she had read as a child were not the way the real world actually worked, she imagined that they had that much right. True Love did not fade.

"But you're going to tell him I've died, won't he move on?" she asked, remembering the widowed merchant's wife her father had courted for a while before she'd run off with the twelfth son of some distant king.

"No, it will make him weaker, just think, he thinks you're dead!" she smiled, spreading her fingers and holding out her hands as though she were a storyteller setting the scene to a group of avid listeners on a festival night, "Alone and bitter he mourns you and blames himself. Or at least casts blame on others rather than admitting to himself he had a hand in the demise of his _poor lost love_," she spoke the last three words in a childish voice filled with condescension, "and then!" she was excited again, "one day he gets too close to besting me and I pull you out of your dungeon, a lost chance he thought he would never get back. Even if he will not allow you to break his curse he'd give up anything else to get you back from my wicked clutches," she held up her hands with her fingers curled into claws like this was all some funny game, "and I still get what I want out of it. I don't see a down-side to the plan really." She shrugged again.

"Who is to say I will agree to this plan of yours? If I love him so much as you seem to think I do, I could just kill myself rather than let you use me against him. Throw myself off whatever tower you put me in or refuse to eat," Belle challenged.

"Oh my dear girl," the Queen leaned across the small compartment and tried to cup Belle's cheek only to have the girl pull away from her violently. "I have _ways_ of making you comply."

Belle turned to face out the window; for the first time in her life she was _truly _terrified at what her future held. But then and there she made a promise to herself. The next time she saw Rumpelstiltskin no matter what was happening or if he still loved her or not or if she was a pawn of the Queen's against him or not she would tell him how she felt.

Something, anything would be better than the cruel things—true or not—she _had _said to him. Even something as silly and childish as the Queen accused her of being would have been a better note to end their relationship on; and that was enough to make her laugh.

It would never have fit after the cruel things she had said to him, things that needed to be said and made it feel like she got—at the very least—a little piece of herself back when he could cast her out like so much rubbish.

But she resolved that if she ever were lucky enough to see him every again, no matter the situation, she would say something, anything, even if all she did was tell him how much she liked the color of his eyes or missed the soft, comforting sound of the spinning wheel as he worked behind her.

She could even tell him how sweet and un-beast-like that shuddering little 'oh' he had breathed out after she kissed him was. Not just un-beast-like but _endearing_. Belle could just imagine how he would take something like _that_.

He would have thought it another trick no-doubt and probably turned her into a mouse and fed her to one of the cats that ran around the kitchens—in no small part to the bowls of cream she set out for them.

A fine joke that would have been, _you're a coward left alone with an empty heart, a chipped cup and those beautiful eyes of yours!_

She did try to escape the carriage, even as she thought of such silly things to say, filling her mind with light, good thoughts, her hand slid over the handle on the door and she tumbled out in her fine gown, hiking it up around her knees and running as fast as she could.

Unfortunately, while Belle had always loved balls and been a fine dancer—at least everyone had always said so—running had never been something she engaged in, and she was winded before she even had time to slip on a wrong step and crash down hard, driving her shoulder into a stump of a tree jutting up sharply out of the ground.

One of the black knights accompanying the carriage found her stunned and gasping on the ground before the Queen even had to get out of her carriage and Belle could not tell which was the worse to endure: the pain in her shoulder, the fear of what lay ahead, or the mortification of just how _far_ her grand break for freedom had gotten her and how mortifying it was she couldn't have at least made it difficult for them to catch her.

"Do try to avoid such a rash action again little Belle," the Queen said as the knight roughly shoved her back into the compartment. "Or I will have to rethink my plan of not cutting out your heart. It may destroy my chances at breaking his curse but you'd still make a fine bargaining chip."

Belle nodded and hung her head. She would not be so rash again. She would be quiet and still and _plan_ and when the time was right she would escape the Queen's clutches and find Rumpelstiltskin again even just to tell him she understood a little better his actions. He was a coward, but she was starting to realize that she'd rather he was a coward with his powers and able to stand against the Queen than let the monster across from her—for the Queen was far more a monster than Rumpelstiltskin ever thought himself to be—be the most powerful in all the land.

A part of her wondered if there wasn't a kind of bravery in his cowardice. He was too much of a coward to think anyone could love him, but he was brave enough to stand against the Queen. He was a coward who threw her out of his home, but he was brave enough to tell her to go to her face.

And she certainly had enough time on her hands to wonder and think and try to figure out whether she thought he was a brave coward or a brave man who had acted in a cowardly manner.


	6. Chapter 6

**You all are either going to *love* what happens in this chapter, or come after me with torches. I would be pleased by either because I'm hearing rumors that everyone is bored of Rumbelle? I don't know how true that is or isn't...this is the internet after all...**

**:)**

* * *

_"The "Her" you nearly beat him to death over? He only had one daughter," _Gold played the words over in his head again and again as he sat in his bed at the end of the night. For a while he had tried to read, though Dickens was not his favorite author of this realm Gold did not normally have this trouble focusing.

But her name here would have been Marie.

He knew she had to be dead, dead was dead and no magic could fix that not even true love. She had been dead in that world and so she would be dead in this one as well. The curse, however, gave a lifetime worth of false memories. He had never given it thought really, his own wife and son were so long dead they exceeded a normal lifetime even in the Enchanted Forest, but it was possible that people, normal non-magical people, even had false memories of lost loves.

The curse was cruel like that. It was not enough for it to warp the reality as it was, but not even precious memories of love would remain unaltered.

Marie.

Her name would have been Marie.

He wondered how she had died here, and a morbid part of his personality longed to go to the library and look through the records and find her death certificate. But another part of him, the cowardly part of him, could not see the words written down. It would make them too true.

So instead he sat clutching his closed copy of _David Copperfield _and thinking.

Marie would suit her. She probably lived with her idiot father, in middle-class obscurity rather than the mansion he would have allowed her. He would have made sure she slept only on silk sheets and had a room that faced the East so she could see the sunrise every morning.

And she would have blue curtains that were tied back so she could always have light in her room.

She probably would have worked one of her father's wretched little flower stands on the corner of the street and selling flowers, and rather than realize how wretched her lot was she'd enjoy herself because she'd be in the sun and surrounded by flowers. She would love them all and pick flowers for people and arrange bouquets that went unappreciated.

She'd wear jeans—he wasn't phased by the fashions here, his false memories prepared him for that, and he didn't even bat an eyelash at Ruby's fashions, but for some reason the idea of his Belle, no, _Marie _in jeans made his stomach twist viciously—and sneakers and look every inch the princess she wasn't but should have been.

He thought she might braid her hair to keep it out of her way. Rather than wearing it long and loose like Emma.

He opened his book, trying to tear his mind away from such masochistic thoughts.

_"'Never," said my aunt, 'be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you.'" _He read, trying again in the dim light of his bedside lamp. But he wrenched his eyes shut tight and realized he would have disappointed her entirely. He as mean and false and cruel, and _Marie_ would have even in this world chided him for being so harsh on himself.

She would have told him he was not as monstrous as he seemed, and then tried to point out kind things he had done and when she struggled to think of something he would laugh and she'd laugh in that way that crinkled up her nose and made her soft eyes softer.

And then she would say that someone truly monstrous would not laugh like that with a silly thing like her.

His heart clenched in his chest and he fairly flung the book aside, heedless that it was a beautifully illustrated 1900s edition.

Her name would have been Marie and she would have been lovely and so happy in a world where women could be anything they liked. She would have loved Emma, and she would have loved to see the ocean.

Her name would have been Marie here if he had not driven her from his house and to her death like the cowardly _monster_ that he was. No matter what she might say about him.

He dreamed that night of being in the village of Tong, Shropshire, at the end of _The Old Curiosity Shop_ and he was a mad old man sitting beside a grave waiting for the young girl who had loved him at his worst to return to him and not realizing she was dead.

* * *

It had only been three days since Doctor Erthal had broken her out of the restricted ward of the hospital and she had settled in with the boarish Bruno, but she'd already found a sort of rhythm to her days and found she was enjoying herself.

She did not much care for camping, or for tasks like plucking feathers from birds or skinning rabbits or—worst of all in her opinion—scaling fish, a task she could never do, it seemed, without cutting her hands at least once.

Bruno had not been exaggerating when he said that he lived hand-to-mouth for the most part. He had snares and traps set up all over the little valley he lived in, and he was a very good hunter. But the deer were too large for him to keep with no refrigerator so he never even tried to catch one. He mostly caught rabbits and squirrels.

He assured her that on a good day he might get a wild turkey and he also fished.

Although, apparently while he ate fish and did seem to really enjoy the _sport_ of fishing, fish were not his favorite thing. "Out here," he explained, "you mostly get Muskies, Northerns, Sunfish, and sometimes Perch but I mostly throw those back. When it's the season for 'em I might keep the Perch and use 'em to bait my crawfish traps."

He had a smokehouse that he'd built behind his cabin some hundred yards, and he taught her first how to tend that because she could do it with no great skill. And he'd smoke much of the food he did catch to save for later because smoked it did not need refrigeration.

"And then when it's time for Crawfish Sheriff Graham used to get my whole haul. It was a fair trade for us, he got Crawfish which he could pack away like most people go after potato chips and I didn't have to mess with details like hunting licenses and when I can hunt what and how. "

"Used to?"

"Graham died a while back, there's a new sheriff in town, but I don't know what she likes yet. If I can avoid her long enough it might not matter. I also take my stuff into town and trade, either meat or smoked meat, and always the pelts. The clothing shop in town always buys my pelts and are always on me to catch some Mink for them, or whatever those rat things running around the woods are-" he said this in that same off-handed way he seemed to say all things that he didn't care about. He knew very well it was a mink, but simply didn't care and felt like if he brushed it off that he didn't even know for sure what the animal was, no one would press the matter. "But you only catch them for their fur, they're useless otherwise."

Bruno did not seem willing to kill an animal unless he used—one way or another—the vast majority of it. He even saved the feathers from the turkeys and stuffed his pillows with them.

He would bring her already cleaned meat to hang in the smokehouse or to cook over his little stove, and he was slowly, in their evenings together, teaching her to clean the kills in the hopes that she could start finding the traps nearest to the house and emptying them, resetting them, and taking care of the catches herself.

While she was less likely to hurt herself with this task than with scaling fish, she also found that it was almost enough to put her off meat. Almost, but not quite and a good portion of that was due entirely to her own stubborn nature.

It was one thing to cook meat that she knew was meat, but which didn't look like any animal in particular, and fish, even left looking like a fish, wasn't quite as bad—especially after the first time she'd gone fishing with Bruno and landed an undersized pike which proceeded to viciously sink his curved teeth into her hand and then let go and flop back into the water. Her hand was still tightly bandaged and she was loath to admit she'd actually cried a little.

Until that point she had never been fishing or hunting and all her food had come from a store. She hadn't even been aware that fish _had_ teeth to be honest and it had scared her as much as it had hurt.

It had scared her even more to see the jagged flesh and blood pooling in the palm of her hand and running down her arm to her elbow. But Bruno—sweet underneath the crass humor and poor hygiene—had quickly cleaned the wound and bandaged her up and then told her she was officially a mountain man, woman, person. Which had made her laugh even through her tears.

Doing the same to an animal like a rabbit—which she had always wanted as a pet when she was a little girl—was a lot more difficult. She found she could do the birds okay although she hadn't gotten the hang of removing the feathers as quickly and skillfully as Bruno could, but after her first attempt at a rabbit Bruno had started bringing them in from the woods already without fur and no longer looking like an animal.

The task of bringing the fur into a condition where it could be sold in town, however, still fell to her. Or would, at least, once she got the hang of it.

She woke after he did, went out to the smokehouse and shifted the stock, taking out the completed meats and bringing them inside. She checked the traps and if animals that were still alive and mostly unhurt tended to escape Bruno didn't say anything. And then she'd clean the birds she'd found in the traps and around that time he'd return with a turkey or some fish.

This evening saw her plucking a duck he'd managed to find while he sat eating the last of a muskie he'd brought home.

It was the first time she had seen such a large fish and he'd teased her again for being a city girl and getting all her fish from the grocery store. "This is nothin'," he told her laughing. "One time I got a _huge_ muskie, and I figured I'd cook it up right there, some the Doc's friends and he were fishing with me that day, and I laid it out on a rock and cut it down the middle-" he mimed the action with the knife he'd been eating with, "and out pops this full-grown muskrat confused as can be and it just jumped right back into the water like it weren't anything at all."

Marie didn't know what her face looked like at that moment, but whatever her expression showed it made him laugh. "Muskie are fighting fish, big mean bastards that don't even go after stuff to eat it, just to prove they're the biggest and the meanest one in the lake. They put up a fight, a _big_ fight. That's why they're the most fun to go after up here. The thrill of being to catch something after a fight like that. They pull and yank and," he sighed happily, taking a last mouthful of the flaky flesh, "and it's just _incredible_," he admitted.

"You really enjoy living like this, don't you?" she asked with a warm smile as she pulled herself up to sit on the table. He looked up at her, and she spread her hands to encompass the whole of the little cabin.

"I do not belong in that world out there," he said with a sneer, "always out of place, but even if I _did," _he admitted with that crooked smile, "I would like to live out here. I just might take the time to care about things like what season it is or how much I'm allowed to hunt."

She threw her head back at that and laughed.

"You?" he asked, and she looked to him confused. He mirrored her earlier gesture to encompass the whole cabin and she frowned and looked down at her hands in her lap. Taking in the fraying sweater she was wearing and the over-sized jeans that were too long and too big even after she had altered them as much as she could with the little she had.

"I am _happy_ here," she said finally, stressing the word and glancing up at him to make sure he knew she was serious. "But I am terrible at hunting," she admitted, "I don't like it either and now I'm going to be scared to cut into any fish for fear something _alive_ is gonna jump out of it and run free. I like that I am no longer in the hospital-" he had to be told what she was running from and he and Erthal seemed to be the more hesitant to talk about her stay there. "-I would be grateful to be _anywhere_ besides there," she admitted, "but I miss being free. This is just another kind of cage really, and while I get different clothes and can see the sky my clothes don't fit, and I can't actually _leave_."

"It's hard to be caged, no matter how nice a cage it is," Bruno suggested and she nodded.

"I am happy here, and I really do appreciate all that you have done for me," she was quick to interject.

"I know, but you're hardly the kind of girl to live in the woods."

She made a face and he made one back. "You're too _clean_," he teased, "and worry about _clothes_."

"Brute," she teased.

"Princess," he shot back.

"If that were the case you'd be a beast and we'd be stuck in the Disney story."

"I think someone wrote that before Disney did, but I'm not the reader of the two of us," he teased back. And she did like this, the light-hearted back-and-forth they could fall into as easily as he could turn her stomach when he cracked open a bone and sucked out the marrow like a monster in a storybook.

"Careful," she teased, hopping off the counter and hiking up her pants when they threatened to slip off her frame. She still had no shoes that properly fit and currently wore two pairs of thick wooly socks to try and fill the boots out a little better. "You might yet convince me you're more than a brute living in the woods."

"You look ridiculous," he told her, his voice suddenly lower and more serious. He stood and stepped closer to her, narrowing his eyes and inspecting her like he looked over his snares that misfired.

"I do not, exactly, have a large wardrobe from which to draw," she said lifting her chin and making her voice as imperious and haughty as she could.

"We should fix that."

"What?" All pretense and teasing dropped from her face as she stared openly at him.

"If you're going to live out here with me you need to pull your weight—" this was a common refrain with him, "and you can't do that if you're spending more time hiking up your pants than focusing on keeping your steps light."

"I thought the doctor said..." she began in earnest.

"Doc said to be _careful_, and this is important. Just..." he pulled a hat from a rack on the wall which was little more than a warped two-by-four with nails sticking crookedly out of it. She never failed to marvel that he could build this cabin and a smokehouse and yet when it was something he deemed unimportant he'd just slap it together. He grabbed up her braid of hair and piled it onto the top of her head with one hand and tugged the hat on quickly with his other hand. "Keep your head down and stay behind me. Most people in town try to avoid meeting my eyes anyway."

"Are they so scared of your manners?" she asked, having to tilt her head way back to meet his eyes with the brim pulled so low on her hat.

"They're afraid I'm going to ask for money or handouts," he said with a shrug. "I don't much want to talk with them though so it serves me as well as them."

"Are you sure it's not too dangerous, I don't mind wearing these things, I am _grateful_ really."

"It's dangerous, and stupid too, but I've never claimed to be smart like you or the Doc." His smile was wide and manic.

"Bruno," she sighed, plopping her hands on her hips.

"Come on Princess," he teased, tweaking her nose. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

And like that she was hooked. Logically she knew better, far better, than to risk going into town for something so vain. She would have avoided town under any circumstances beyond near-death. However the side of her than had longed for adventure and a life like those in the very few books she got to read in the hospital, and the hopes she had had before being locked away of seeing the world and traveling endlessly after high school was stronger.

She wanted to dare to go into town, she wanted to see _people_ even if she couldn't talk with them. She wanted to walk familiar streets and smell real food and maybe even order pancakes at Granny's and _ice cream_.

Marie nearly trembled with excitement. "Can we get ice cream?" she asked, and Bruno grinned wider, knowing he'd won.

"Extra hot fudge and whipped cream," he promised, holding out his hand.

* * *

"What the _hell_ is this?" Regina asked—screeched more like—as she came plowing into the Sheriff's Station just as Emma got her coat onto the rack by the door. Clutched in one hand with perfectly manicured nails, which of _course_ matched her lipstick color, was that morning's paper, with a large sketch of the Jane Doe who had escaped and a small article warning people and telling them to be on their toes.

There were no photos of her that Emma had been able to find but one of the patients on her ward did drawings as part of his therapy and liked to draw the other members on his wings as they were the ones he saw the most.

She was still hiding behind a curtain of her hair, but you got a flash of her eye and the line of her nose, and it was the best Emma could find so better than nothing.

The doctor had been more help than any of the security guards. Though he had not been able to tell her how the girl escaped, _"I don't know how a Jane Doe even _could_ escape. All the dangerous patients are kept under _very _close watch," _he had explained, and none of her inner alarms had gone off in the slightest; he was telling her the truth.

He had, however, been able to explain that it was possible she wouldn't harm anyone. _"With the truly gone patients it is just as likely they'll not hurt anyone and go quietly back into custody as it is that they will snap at the slightest provocation and try to do harm to themselves or others. The thing to remember, Sheriff Swan, is that when our patients "escape" it's often not because they're trying to get free, but that the opportunity arose and they left. The gone ones, the ones who need to be here like the Jane Doe the Mayor told you about, lack rationality. They simply act and react."_

He had actually been very helpful, sitting down and explaining much of what happened when others escaped in the past—it was not common but also not unheard of—and giving her a better idea of how to _hunt_ someone like a madwoman who wasn't trying to get money and hit up Vegas like most of the people Emma had hunted in the past.

Well, and also who didn't simply vanish into the pages of dusty yearbooks. She had found a newspaper article which mentioned Marie French winning a scholarship to a fancy college and leaving her last year of high school to move to a high school closer to the college so she could take early courses.

But there was something fishy about it. Though reading words on a page wasn't like listening to someone talk, Emma was willing to bet money that that wasn't the whole story. And with Moe's suicide on top of this mystery? She didn't know what had happened to Marie, but she doubted it had been a fancy Ivy League education that drove her so far from her home she didn't even come back at the news her father had shot himself.

"I told you I was going to alert people that we had a potentially dangerous woman on the loose if I didn't find her," Emma reminded Regina, already bored with this fight. Sometimes fighting Regina was at least amusing, or even just a way of learning a bit more about the dark woman who seemed to rule the town more than a Mayor should. It was almost enough to see why Henry thought of her as an Evil Queen from a story.

Today and now, however, Emma was just _tired._ She had gotten more of a lesson yesterday from Doctor Erthal than she'd gotten in all her years of schooling—short though they may have been—and that had been exhausting enough, but now on top of it all she still had to find this Jane Doe.

Crazy the girl might be but she'd managed to completely beat the security footage from the hospital. Emma had even entertained the idea of someone trying to break the girl out, but she had no friends or family who could even identify her, who would risk their life trying to break her out?

When she'd finally slunk home to sleep before restarting the search early this morning Emma hadn't even gotten all that much rest. She had tossed and turned most of the night and whenever there was the smallest sound outside her mind had convinced her that it was the Jane Doe about to harm someone.

"_Yes_," Regina bit out in that way she had when she was truly worked up into a fury, "_Warn them_, but not take out an ad in the damn paper!"

"The people have a right to _know_!" Emma snapped, storming over to her desk and trying to fight the urge to pick something up and hurl it across the room.

She'd picked up that habit from one of her foster homes, but there was little in the world that felt as good when you were that furious as _breaking_ something.

"That you're too incompetent at your job to find one lost girl? Yes! I do think they should know that! But _you're _going to create an unnecessary panic in the streets!"

Emma raised an eyebrow and turned to look out the large bay window that opened onto the street. Archie was walking past with Pongo, his umbrella tucked into the crook of his arm. Coming the opposite way Ashely was pushing a carriage while Sean carried little Alexandra. Michael Tillman was walking Nicolas and Ava to the bus stop and he took the time to wave, and the children smiled.

"Yeah, Regina, they look _terrified," _Emma snorted.

* * *

Gold leaned heavily on his cane, for some reason the fluctuating weather of early spring—even a dry one like this almost-spring—wreaked havoc on his leg more than biting cold or damp. It did not help that he had spent the night tossing and turning and awoken less rested than he'd felt before falling asleep.

All things that shouldn't have much affect on it anyway. Not if this modern-day tale of a thrown blood clot and necrotic muscle carved away were true. But he knew that what it had been was an Ogre mace that had torn away muscle and shattered his femur at the same time. In their realm and when he had still been human centuries before Regina and her reign medicine had not been what it was here and so bits of bone, sharp as knifes, had pushed into the muscles that remained and they'd nearly had to remove the whole leg.

In the end a bottle of peach liquor had been his anesthesia and a tailor had fished around in his leg plucking out shards of bone and re-cutting along scars that were already there.

To this day the smell of peaches alone was enough to make his stomach turn and the taste would actually make him vomit.

The story was a lie, but the injury was real and so he sagged against his cane in line at the pharmacy while Mr. Clark periodically broke off to sneeze into his handkerchief and choke out: "allergies" apologetically.

Ruby was at the head of the line currently, leaned against the counter and popping her gum loudly, making Clark take longer as he darted glances at her, realized he didn't quite know where to look (or not look) first, and looking away.

She was picking up her grandmother's prescription and probably had been sent on that errand specifically but it hadn't seemed to stop her from picking up what looked to be two different bottles of red nail polish and a pack of gum.

Gold shifted his grip on his cane, it was one benefit of this modern world, half-unreal though it might be, there was a wonderful array of pain medications available which helped his leg without muddling his mind, and lacking access to his magic and many of the herbs which grew wild and free in the other realm he could not brew his own.

It was the curse making a concession to his demand of comfort.

Though there would always be mornings like this, where his leg ached so it drove him into town before he could even read the paper, Clark would also always happen to have Gold's prescription ready and it worked remarkably fast for being based in science rather than magic.

Between him and Ruby—and part of the reason he shifted backward a step—was this world's Bearskin. Here his name was Bruno but he still retained that half-wild nature and complete disregard for personal hygiene from the other world.

That had not been one of Rumpelstiltskin's deals, and rather had been the work of an actual demon—something he was not no matter what people called him. True, demons were rare with the Fairies as powerful as they were, and most people imagined them all—but for one spinner of straw into gold—vanquished.

The smaller figure next to Bruno was new, but wrapped in ill-fitting old clothes and clearly a friend of his. Of course, there were countless princesses who were never cursed and Miller's daughters who never put on red dancing shoes, or whose fathers never claimed they could spin more than they were capable of; and many of the inhabitants of Storybrooke were inconsequential.

When he first fell into line behind them, and their matching armloads of processed foods and the over-large cooler at Bruno's feet, Gold's first thought was that here was another couple struggling toward a happy ending they would never get. And then the girl had shifted, her baseball-cap of a lurid green pulled low over her eyes and hair tucked up under it, but the light had caught and for a moment her hair shinned autumn gold rather than brown.

After the fact, to himself, he would never be able to say what moved his hand, it was the same sort of instinct that one had when they were being watched, undefinable as to _why_ but with reason later. It was more a leftover of whatever remained of his human nature than anything to do with his power as the Dark One.

His cane shifted to his other hand and he reached for the cap, realizing mid-motion he wasn't sure what he was doing until he'd grabbed the back of the hat and yanked, getting a fair-sized fistful of her hair unintentionally.

She squawked in a combination of indignation, surprise, and pain and stumbled backward, her hands flailing up and her load dropping. A carton of milk burst against the floor and Ruby shouted as the cold milk struck the bare backs of her legs.

Gold stumbled backward in a mirror of her movement a moment ago, the hat falling to the floor and her hair tumbling loose and wild and she spun to face him while Bruno bristled.

His heart stopped. He was sure of it. It stopped, or maybe even stuttered to a _start_ after being stopped the moment he heard the Queen utter that horrible phrase: _She died._

The world was still for one perfect moment of incandescent happiness. Belle was alive, he stood before her and she was alive with her perfect blue eyes and her fall-colored hair and even surprised and maybe a little scared she had that _smile_ hiding in the corners of her mouth.

He could tell her all the things he had been considering for almost thirty years. How he was scared, and a coward, and she was right, and that it didn't matter how many curses her perfect kisses broke, he would always _be _a coward.

That_ that _had been what he was scared of, that when she found out he was nothing but a coward hiding behind unfathomable magic she wouldn't love him anymore. That of course a perfect being like her could love a beast, but no one could love a coward.

He wanted her to understand, to know that even though he was too scared to let her break his curse and take away the one thing she did love, the man who could at least pretend to be brave, she would always have a place with him and he wold never allow anyone to ever even think of hurting her again.

She blinked, the fear completely dissipating, and said: "You have such beautiful eyes," and then seemed to be startled that the words had come tumbling out of her mouth, almost as much of an involuntary reaction as the squawk of pain had been a moment before.

And then the moment shattered like a tea cup against the wall and chaos broke out.

"Hey," Ruby said with a crooked smile and a point of one carefully manicured finger with yet a third shade of red polish. "You're that girl in the paper, aren't you_?_"

Later he would know that seeing his Belle alive and well and rosy-cheeked again, know that having heard her voice—he wouldn't even remember what she said—again had muddled his senses or he would have known something was wrong before Clark even spoke.

"You _are_," he sounded less intrigued and more terrified, "You're _her_," a note of disgust and His Belle started to edge toward the door. "_Call 911!_" Clark managed to shout over a sneeze.

"You're the escaped mental patient!" Sydney said from where he'd been struggling over the decision between spicy and yellow mustard.

Bruno grabbed her forearm in a grip that made her yelp and then ran full-tilt for the door. And when one of the mechanics from Marine Garage stepped in their way Bruno ducked his head, shifted his shoulder and tackled the man like a linebacker. The mechanic, who had expected brute force from the size of Bruno, but not a pinpoint, intelligent attack, slammed hard back into the door, pushing it open as he fell through it and together His Belle and Bruno the Bearskin rushed over him and into the spring air, leaving Gold still wavering on his feet and reaching after them like he could touch her though she was long out of his sight.

Clark was on the phone behind the counter already calling for help and Sydney came up to Gold, snapping a photo of his face at the same time he asked: "You nearly caught her! Congratulations! How did you know it was her? How were you brave enough to approach a dangerous figure like her?"

And just like that Gold snapped back into this world he was meant to be a part of a little longer. Now a world where his Belle was alive and somewhere in trouble and where he could not simply go up and _slaughter_ the lying Queen. He could not go up and cut out Regina's tongue while she screamed and then watch her choke on her own blood. Because if she died, the curse could not be broken, it was tied to her, the one who had sacrificed her most precious heart for the casting.

He pulled his lips back from his teeth in the most terrifying smile he could muster and was rewarded when Sydney backed up a step.

"Mr. Glass," he drawled, hissing out the 's'. "I seem to recall you are no longer a part of _The Mirror _and are now, rather, a private citizen once more."

"Uh, y-yes," Sydney managed.

"I seem to also recall that Moe French was the last private citizen who ran afoul of me."

"Is that a threat?" Sydney asked, trying to dredge up a semblance of indignation.

"_Yes_," Gold growled, and then pushed past him and out of the Pharmacy, his medicine and pain long forgotten. At least, the pain in his leg was forgotten.

When he got back to his home and fairly dragged himself up the steps into his house he noticed the paper where he'd left it on the table in favor of the pharmacy.

Front page, with a large color photo accompanying it was an article about the mental patient: Jane Doe rather than Marie French who had been Belle and was not dead. Escapee—somehow. They weren't sure how—aggressive and violent. For a front-page article it was short, just saying she was very dangerous, when she had escaped, and to alert the hospital or Sheriff's office if you saw her along with a warning to not approach her under any circumstances.

Gold ran his long fingers—still shaking—over the picture in the paper. She looked like his Belle even in this world. Her hair was a little longer, and her face a little thinner, but she was even wearing blue. It was a thin hospital blue, but it was still blue and still made her eyes stand out so that he thought he could almost drown in them and end this suffering.

He was as furious as he was in agony though. Knowing that she was alive and somewhere in this town, he wanted nothing more than to find Regina and punish her for her lies. Killing her would be too swift, he wanted her to know true suffering, and if he had to repair the dark damage casting this curse had done to her to make her hurt all the more, he would do it. He would keep her alive and healthy no matter what it took to make sure she suffered as no one in _any _world had ever suffered.

If he did not kill her the curse could still be broken, and there were a great many things that a person could suffer without dying. He would break every last bone in her miserable, wretched body and watch her writhe on the floor in agony, weeping brokenly and still knowing only a fraction of the pain that had been his constant companion since she'd spoken those _wretched, twisted, seething _lies ages ago in another world.

But the chessboard could not handle that.

Regina was the Black Queen and Emma the White, and he was the Chessmaster playing. He could not allow this to interrupt his plans. Because if he gave Regina the torture she deserved Emma would step in to protect her, as that was what Emma did.

And the tenuous truce he had managed to build with her would shatter, and when the time came she would grant him no favor owed, because he would be the monster, and monsters did not get favors. While the magic may force her to complete their bargain she would not be the savior he needed. You could not force someone to be a hero if they did not wish it. She would fulfill only the minimum of his favor and only as an obligation and he would need faith and desire behind her actions.

Curses were tricky things and often it was not simply a kiss or a potion or a sword in a dragon's heart that would break it. There needed to be specific feeling behind it. He knew of the Charming Prince's first attempt at kissing his Lady Love, and how it had not worked because it had been a kiss taken rather than given.

He –on the other hand—had been given a kiss and he had accepted a kiss and that was why his curse had begun to crumble around the edges.

Emma had to _know_ she was the savior and Emma had to _know_ that she was doing the right thing and if the wise man beside the road who pushed her lightly in the right direction tried to tear even a monster to brutal, tiny pieces she would not believe him to be the wise man, she would see him as the trickster.

And the trickster was always killed and never trusted and then Regina would win for all his careful planning. Which had, no doubt, been a part of her plan, even when she had no plan of which to speak and knew nothing of the curse she would come to cast.

* * *

Tabatha sat on one of the mismatched barstools at her kitchen counter. She had fished three of them out of a garbage bin when she first moved out and the asymmetry created by three barstools had bothered her enough that she'd always been on the look out for a forth. There was a plate beside her that was part of a set she had got from Mr. Gold's shop when she first moved out. Plates had been something she wanted, something that seemed like it would make the little apartment she'd found a _home_ rather than a place.

Gold was every inch the cruel bastard that other people said he was, a demon in nice suits who profited off of people who didn't have any other choice. However, Tabatha believed that there was sense in making deals with the devil. So long as you could keep up your end of the bargain you could get whatever you needed.

For the plates he'd wanted money, so she'd scraped enough together. For her apartment he'd let her live rent-free for the first three months, but she'd had to pay double the monthly rent for the three months after that. Which was just extortion. It wasn't _her _fault that she had a monster of a father and asking for twelve hundred dollars a month for a place that didn't even have air conditioning or heat was crazy.

He'd helped her get the job at the school, working in the admissions department, in exchange for an unnamed favor. It made her sick to her stomach to still owe him and she imagined that was part of his joy, knowing how miserable people were owing him longer and longer and never knowing what he would collect or when.

Mr. Gold was the sort of sick twist who probably got off on that, she thought with a snort. Everyone knew he'd driven poor, old Mr. French to his death. It had been in the paper and everything. Sure it was _supposedly_ a suicide, but everyone knew better. The new Sheriff was brave enough to stand up to Gold apparently, but he was sneaky like a snake.

Her phone rang again, the caller ID lighting up "Father" and she rolled her eyes. Maybe she should see what Gold would charge her to take care of _that_ little problem. He'd beaten the hell out of French and gotten away with it because there was a lack of proof and French had refused to press charges.

The newspapers had never come out and _said _it, but there were whispers all over the town that he'd staged the suicide and he'd really been the one to kill Moe French. For a moment there had been whispers about why their brave new Sheriff wasn't doing anything about it—supposedly there were security tapes that someone was trying to repress—but then that girl had escaped from the loony bin in the hospital.

Tabatha thought that Gold had probably had his fingers in that _too_ as a means of distracting the only person who would have stood up to him. People weren't subtle when they called her bitter and cruel; she wondered how _they'd _react with a father like her's. A monster of a man who probably would have tried to sell her to the highest bidder if they were in a culture with arranged marriages. But she liked the new Sheriff. They had met when Tabatha and her father had had another of their knock-down drag-out fights loud enough the neighbors had called it in as a domestic disturbance.

It had been years since her father had hit her, really. He'd hit her as a kid only a handful of times, and back then she'd actually tried to tailor her behavior to please him. She'd learned better in high school and started taking boxing lessons at the gym down the street. Boys didn't date a girl who could out-fight them but when her father had lifted a hand to hit her she'd fallen into a fighting stance and told him in no uncertain terms that if he touched her she'd kill him.

He'd believed her and their fights had simply become shouting matches. She'd moved out the day after she graduated high school.

She still went over for dinner, which is what the few people she knew—Tabatha did not have _friends_ in the strictest sense—couldn't understand.

He'd hit her as a kid and he treated her monstrously now, so much so she had moved out and never looked back, so why did she still spend time with him?

The Sheriff—_Emma_-had just looked at her and given that broken little smile Tabatha saw in the mirror. "He's never gonna be the dad you want, but you still gotta try, right?" she'd said, and if Tabatha was the type to go in for girly reactions she might have cried.

"Somethin' like that," she'd said instead.

"I won't ask if he hit you, but you know that if he does you don't even have to press charges, I'll make sure he stays away from you."

In all her twenty-five years it had been the nicest thing anyone had ever said or done for her. Which she supposed should be depressing really.

Since then Tabatha made sure to at least try and smile when she saw Emma on the street, and she'd added a post-it note to Henry Mills file that said to call the Sheriff if anything happened to the kid.

After Mayor Mills of course.


End file.
